


The Head That Wears the Crown.

by runrarebit



Series: Descent [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Brainwashing, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Casual Murder, Confusion, Dreams, Evolving summary, F/F, F/M, Family Issues, Film canon pretty much only and even then questionable in places, Force-Sensitive Hux, Grief, Hux Backstory, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Victim Blaming, M/M, Mass civilian death, Misunderstandings, Multi, Mutilation, Not Canon Compliant, Parent Death, Past Child Abuse, Past DubCon, Past Exploitation, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Underage, Poor Hux, Possible Redemption, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Probably not how one's supposed to write something, Regret, Self indulgent navel-gazing like usual, Sexual Frustration, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Violence, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Tags May Change, Titles are not my forte, Trauma, Violence, Visions, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction, family violence, mentioned animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-03-20 13:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 37
Words: 79,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13718676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: The galaxy has acknowledged Savim, the leader of one of the rival factions of the First Order, as Supreme Leader. Ben Solo, no longer Kylo Ren, but still leader of a motly collection of Knights, officers, techs, Stormtroopers and old Seperatist droids, has resolved to distance himself from the man Snoke was- but resolutions are easier made than kept. Meanwhile Hux, still struggling with his sense of self,  does his best to keep everything together in this new world where Ben Solo seems bent on thanking rather than attacking him. As they try to forge a new future from their past, and their faction prepares for war, the shadows cast by the old Supreme Leader still loom large.





	1. Chapter 1

The morning after the battle of Dominion Base brought the news that the High Council had issued a formal statement declaring Savim the true Supreme Leader of the First Order. A few days later one of the other ‘Supreme Leaders,’ Daravin, had surrendered to her. A few days after that the man had been publicly executed. The last remaining other ‘Supreme Leader,’ Mour, is preparing for siege at Ascension Base. As the days had passed more and more conquered worlds, world which had been holding their breaths while the First Order fought amongst itself, had sworn their allegiance to Savim, now official Supreme Leader of the First Order as far as the galaxy is concerned. 

They are lurking near the abandoned Separatist base, in a part of the galaxy rarely visited, while the droids are repaired, reprogrammed and activated. They should be safe for a while, because Savim doesn’t have much of a fleet left after the battle of Dominion Base, but with the High Council behind her it is likely she now has the funds for this to change rapidly. Soon they will have to head for Arkanis.

He hasn’t been sleeping well. Amongst the nightmares and half-images, memories of his parents, anger at Snoke, he dreams he is Hux, pinned under the old Supreme Leader. It isn’t the same as the first dream, nowhere near as vivid, more the shadow of that dream preying on his consciousness. He gets up early, exercises, spars with droids. He really should try sparring with one of his Knights, a bit of real violence might take the edge off his thoughts. He hasn’t killed anyone in days, not since Werinn.

He doesn’t know what to call himself. He is content with his choice to be Ben Solo once more, but Ben Solo what? Emperor stinks of the Empire, Supreme Leader makes him want to kill something. He is no King for he has no Kingdom, and a King is always in danger of falling under the sway of a King-of-Kings. Monarch, Sovereign, Leader, Ruler, Commander- they all imply different things. He is not sure what he wants his title to imply. 

It was easy, talking to Hux, to decide to put aside Kylo Ren, the title of Supreme Leader, the First Order as the First Order, but then he imagines how his Knights will react, how the crew will react. He’s strong enough to kill anyone who proves a problem, but at the end of the day if he kills all of them he’ll be the ruler of nothing. He does not know if he should start small or if he should reform everything in one fell swoop. He needs to think first, he needs a strategy. He cannot remain Kylo Ren though, he can’t stand the reminder of the fool he once was. _How could he have looked up to Snoke like that? How could he have seen that man as his salvation?_

_Lord Solo,_ that’s what Hux called him. Perhaps he can be Lord (Ben) Solo for now without worrying about his actual title. He needs to ask Hux. Hux should be able to work it out for him. 

_Hux._ He will never have Hux. Hux will never be his lover. He cannot imagine the man will ever want to be with anyone after so many years as Snoke’s plaything. It makes him furious. If he could go back, kill Snoke again, twice over, thrice over, four times over, a hundred times over and each more painful than the last he would. It is only now that he knows that Hux is lost to him, lost in that way at least, that he realises how much he really wants the man. The dreams that started it may have been residue from Snoke, they may have been the Force speaking to him, they may have been some unacknowledged figment of his own desires, he doesn’t know, he no longer cares. If he thinks of every interaction he’s had with Hux since they started, since Hux was freed from Snoke, he sees enough in the man to entice him even if they’d never happened. 

If things had been different perhaps he would be torturing himself right now with thoughts of making different choices, of striking Snoke down years ago, but that wouldn’t have given him a chance with Hux. There was no moment in all the years he knew the redhead where there was the potential for them to be together. Snoke had already ruined things long before the first time they met. All he can do is go on from here, try and treat the man better. Maybe they can even become friends, or something like it, in the future they’re forging.

Of his Knights Neiro and Gydn still spend most of their time overseeing the Rectitude, Saiva remains on the Finalizer. He has had no trouble with any of them so far. Jrii and Xatjt have nothing to report other than that his child wasn’t born on Ryloth, the Force doesn’t seem eager to guide them any more than it is to guide him. The worrying thing is that Rhadn hasn’t arrived, or reached out through the Force, or comm-ed, or shown any sign that he intends to. When he reaches out in the Force for the Knight he finds _nothing,_ a great emptiness, but not the emptiness of death, of absence. It feels like trying to reach into the heart of a hollow vessel and grasp at the air there. He will need to ask his other Knights when they last saw Rhadn, and if they think the man is betraying him. He doesn’t know what to do if that’s the case. He has no idea where to even begin looking for the Knight, and he doubts they can afford to get distracted by such a quest right now. 

He is thinking of finding Hux and asking the man to eat dinner with him. He’s enjoyed the few times they’ve eaten together, enjoyed it enough that he’d like it to become part of the everyday way they interact. He just doesn’t like the idea of doing it in the noisy, crowded mess hall. How can he really talk to Hux when they’re surrounded by so many others? He eats most of his own meals in his quarters, sitting either in his chair or on the edge of his berth. He has no proper table, dining chairs, place set aside for eating in his dreary rooms. 

The Finalizer has a few quarters set aside for visiting dignitaries, larger rooms with big berths, big washrooms, lounge and dining areas. He is considering taking one of them for his own. Another, perhaps, could go to Hux. That way they’d have two locations if they wanted to eat together. 

_** DARKNESS.  ** _

The sensation vanishes as soon as it began. He gasps in a breath reflexively. He looks around, reaches out with the Force. He can’t tell where it was coming from, what it might signify. All he knows is that for the merest instant someone was channelling a huge amount of the Dark Side. 

Perhaps it was one of his Knights. That would make the most sense. They were probably meditating, drawing on the Force, centring themselves in the Dark. Still, he feels uneasy.

He comms Hux. “Where are you?” he asks the moment the man answers.

A pause. “On the Rectitude. Is something wrong Sir?” 

“No,” he replies. Then a little slower. “No. What are you doing there?”

“Inspecting the installation of the charging stations for the droids,” Hux answers.

“How is progress?”

A pause. He frowns. Eventually Hux replies “Going well on the Finalizer but lagging a little here. I was thinking we could discuss it later.”

“I would like that,” he replies. “Do you want to eat dinner together?”

“I was going to eat here,” a pause. “However, I don’t think any progress will be lost if I return to the Finalizer for the evening.” Another pause. “Forgive me if it’s impertinent, but perhaps if we’re going to eat together we should do it in my rooms? From what I’ve seen your quarters don’t have a dining table.”

He can remember declining an invitation to talk in Hux’s rooms after they discovered the mutiny, wanting to have some control of the situation. It feels like he was a different man back then. A more foolish man. “Of course,” he replies. “I will arrange the food while you return from the Rectitude. What would you like to eat?”

“A rationbar is fine.”

“The kitchens should be almost fully stocked after the resupply,” he points out. “You should eat real food every now and then.” He is going to order a nice, thick bantha steak, still rare in the middle. 

Another pause. “A rationbar will do. I don’t-” Hux hesitates, then finishes. “I don’t like the food from the kitchens.”

He thinks back. The only time, in all the years he’s known the redhead, and all the times he’s seen the man eat something, the only time he ever saw Hux eat anything other than a rationbar was on the island. “You like fish don’t you? Do the kitchens serve fish?” he asks, and then feels a bit stupid. They’re his kitchens, they should make anything he tells them to.

“It doesn’t taste as good when it’s been frozen,” Hux replies. “They also don’t cook it properly.”

“How do you want it cooked?” even slightly disappointing fish has to be better than nothing but rationbars. “Tell me and I’ll make sure they do it.”

Hux hesitates. “What will you do if they get it wrong?”

It feels like the gentlest reprimand. He knows Hux hates it when he kills members of the crew for what the man sees as inadequate reasons. “I will tell them to try harder next time. I promise. That’s all. I won’t kill anyone.”

“Ok,” Hux sounds uncertain. “Have them roast a fish, prepared but otherwise whole, with the bones still in. The only seasoning I want is salt. I’ll also have some leafy green vegetables, lightly steamed, and maybe a serving of some kind of boiled grain or root vegetable. Just-” the man hesitates again “I really don’t like butter, or cream, or cheese, or milk, or any dairy product, and the kitchens have always been rather overeager in their use of them.”

“Not in your food,” he says. “I will make sure of it.”

“Then I’ll meet you at my rooms?” a pause and then “You’ll probably reach them before I get back. You can let yourself in if you wish.”

He feels a blush rise to his cheeks. Let himself in to Hux’s rooms without the man being there. The thought feels very intimate. “I’ll see you soon.”

After he ends the comm he contacts the kitchens, being very specific and more than a little threatening about Hux’s order. Whole roast fish, steamed leafy greens, boiled grain or root vegetables. Seasoned with salt only, and _absolutely no dairy products_. He orders his bantha steak, crispy roasted root vegetables, steamed assorted other vegetables in butter, and then, not sure why, he goes to his cupboard and pulls out a slightly dusty bottle of wine. 

He rarely drinks and when he does it’s rarely wine, but he can remember seeing this bottle in a shop the last time Snoke sent him to Coruscant and buying it on impulse. He’d stuck it in the back of the cupboard when he’d been recalled to the Finalizer. He hadn’t wanted Snoke to sense the moment’s weakness in him. It was a variety both his mother and Luke had enjoyed. He can remember being given sips from her glass as a child when he’d asked to try it out of curiosity, screwing up his face at the taste. 

He wonders if Hux will like it. If the redhead even drinks. He imagines those pink lips closing around the rim of a glass, that long neck tilted back. He fetches a couple of unused wine glasses, fine crystal, that he’d picked up on that same trip to Coruscant.

He does as Hux suggested and uses the Force to let himself into the man’s rooms when he arrives. They are very small, as small as his, and very neat. There is a tiny berth, narrower than his own, a desk with a chair, to one side two steel-framed armchairs by a low table, and to another two steel-framed dining chairs either side of a tiny steel-framed dining table. There is the shadow of a kitchenette, a single benchtop next to a tiny sink, cupboards above and below. The only thing on the bench is a kettle.

He takes the wine over to the table, setting one glass by each place, and opens it to let it breathe while he waits for Hux and the food to arrive. There is nothing about this room to suggest who occupies it other than the stand for Hux’s greatcoat. There are no knick-knacks, no personal items. A sudden memory, he was sure someone once mentioned something about Hux having a cat, but there’s no sign of any animal here. 

Gazing at Hux’s neat desk he notices something, a splotch of colour out of place in the institutional setting. He goes over, reaches down between the base of the lamp and a stack of books and pulls out a length of cloth. The thing makes a noise as he moves it, tiny round copper coloured bells sewn to every side tinkling away. The cloth is very soft, very smooth. If he’s not mistaken the thing is woven from spider silk. The embroidery on it is exceedingly fine work, and he can see thin metallic threads amongst the silk floss. He’s not sure what it is, a scarf, a shawl, he raises it to his face. He can smell Hux. Hux has worn this at some point. Why though? Why would Hux even have such a thing, it must be worth at least 1000 credits. Hux doesn’t seem the kind to waste his money on finery.

The colour would suit him though, it would look nice against his skin and with his coppery hair and sea coloured eyes. He imagines Hux wearing it. Then he imagines Hux wearing nothing but it. The flush returns to his cheeks. He feels his cock twitch. He shakes the thought away. He cannot have Hux.

The door opens while he’s still holding the cloth. It’s Hux, of course. The man looks at him, looks at the silk in his hand. “This is-” he begins, not sure if he’s trying to explain himself or ask why Hux has the cloth.

“It was a gift from someone who worked for the Hutt, on Maneshfva,” Hux says. “I don’t want it. You can have it if you’d like.”

He shakes his head, puts the cloth back on Hux’s desk. “Dinner should be here soon, would you like a glass of wine?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, I'm happy you're still interested in this story. 
> 
> Also, while there are different cultural approaches to fish bones, be careful of them.

The charging stations for the droids are progressing within schedule. He spent the morning inspecting the progress on board the Finalizer and has now taken a short-range shuttle to the Rectitude to continue his inspection. He has not been on this ship since it was captured. There is an air about the place, something disquieting. Perhaps that is simply because it has even less crew than the Finalizer. 

It is not as if the Finalizer is all that peaceful. Things have settled down a little in the days since Ben threw most of the Command Staff out of the airlock after Maneshfva, mainly because there hasn’t been a repeat performance, but there is still a great deal of fear in the air. Everyone still seems very aware that just because their leader hasn’t killed any of them in a few days doesn’t mean that each and every day won’t be the one where that changes. 

The Rectitude though, instead of buzzing with fear the ship feels hollow. The techs and officers and Stormtroopers that staff it seem to slump past, dark circles under their vacant eyes. It takes a moment every time he asks a question for his words to register, and officers and techs answer slowly, as if every word is drawn from them only after extreme effort. This slowness seems to be reflected in their work, because even though both ships have an equal number of techs doing the same job, starting at the same time, the installation aboard the Rectitude is lagging by about a day. It’s not enough to be a problem yet, and part of it can be accounted for by the fear speeding up work on the Finalizer, but if it continues and gets worse he might have to do something about it. 

He has seen neither of the two Knights so far, which seems a little odd. Onboard the Finalizer Saiva Ren is almost always near the Bridge, but the Bridge was empty of any but the scarce Command Staff when he arrived. After long minutes of waiting for the question to break through whatever haze they were operating under the Command Staff did report to him that Neiro Ren had been there earlier, and was almost always there, though they rarely see Gydn Ren. 

Things might improve if the ship had a Captain. Someone obviously in charge who is also not obviously some kind of Dark Jedi. Commander Tchalrom is the clear choice, being one of the highest-ranking officers they have and having served on the Rectitude for years, but he thinks perhaps it would be an idea to get Ben to have a good look at the man’s mind before they hand over control of one of their two ships to a man involved in the mutiny. 

A slow moving, almost dazed, tech is struggling to explain where the droids will be stored during their down-time after being charged. The man keeps repeating himself and never getting to the actual point. He is starting to get frustrated. It is tempting to tell the tech to go get a cup of Kaf, eat a rationbar and then come back and try again.

The feeling comes over him so suddenly, between one breath and the next. He’s being watched. He knows what it feels like to be prey. He has been prey off and on for most of his life. Prey in his father’s eyes, in his father’s cadet’s eyes, in Snoke’s eyes, in the High Council’s eyes, in Sunny Adar’s eyes, in Ben’s eyes. A small thing to hurt when the hunter feels like, with no care given to the hunted’s feelings. He freezes.

He doesn’t want to freeze. His body doesn’t seem to care. He finds himself hunched down, looking around, trying to tell where the hunted feeling is coming from. The tech is just standing there, mouth hanging open as if he’s forgotten his words mid sentence. He sees nothing. He feels something though, like fingers brushing the edges of his mind. _Is it Ben?_ It doesn’t feel like Ben. He still isn’t used to calling him Ben.

His hand goes to his blaster. The tech is still just standing there. He feels uneasy. Perhaps it’s a figment of his imagination. Perhaps he’ll feel better if he goes somewhere with more people.

“Why don’t we go to the mess hall?” he asks the tech, who blinks. Slowly, so very slowly. “It is nearing dinner time. Have you eaten today Head Technician Nsenta?” 

“I can’t remember,” the man replies, eventually. After much more slow blinking. Perhaps the man is just hungry. Perhaps. He is beginning to suspect he’ll have to comm Ben and request his presence on this ship.

As if the man has read his mind Ben comms him. “Where are you?” the man demands when he answers.

He hesitates. “On the Rectitude. Is something wrong Sir?” 

He can hear the man breathing. The tech is still just standing there, gazing blankly at him and blinking. He is starting to get more than a little unnerved. That’s probably why, after explaining what he’s doing on the ship, he agrees to have dinner with the man. He even suggests they eat in his own rooms. He doesn’t even argue that strongly when the man insists he eat something other than a rationbar, even though he worries that it’s a choice that will end up getting kitchen techs killed. He’s not sure how much he trusts a promise from that man not to kill someone who crosses him, even in such a small and petty way. 

After comm-ing the bridge to inform the Command Staff that he’s leaving, a process that seems to take longer than it should for them to comprehend, he turns back to Nsenta to do the same. The tech blinks at him. “Ok,” the man says after a while. “I’ll just, I’ll just…”

“Why don’t you go have dinner in the mess hall?” he suggests.

After a moment the man nods, slowly. “I’ll have dinner in the mess hall.”

He makes his way to his shuttle trying to ignore the sense that something’s wrong. It’s probably nothing. It may not be nothing. He’ll discuss it with Ben. 

He finds the man already in his rooms, Sunny Adar’s shawl hanging from his fingers. Forcing his face carefully blank he answers. “It was a gift from someone who worked for the Hutt, on Maneshfva,” he doesn’t want to bring up Sunny Adar. He’s no longer completely convinced that Ben will blame him for what happened with the man, but he doesn’t want to find out for sure in case he’s wrong. In case it changes the way the man sees him. Makes Ben reconsider everything with Snoke and blame him once more for his relationship with the old Supreme Leader. It feels childish to fear such a thing. “I don’t want it. You can have it if you’d like.”

The man declines, offers him wine. He looks over to his table, sees the bottle there, already open to breathe. “One glass,” he says. “I’ll just go wash up.”

As Ben goes over to pour them both a glass he hangs his greatcoat on its stand and then goes to his bathroom. He cleans his hands and splashes water on his face. The splotches of Arkanisian tan are getting more noticeable, it has always taken them a few days to fully mature. He rubs at a couple, but they no more rub off now than they did when he was a child and his father held his face under the tap and scrubbed it raw with a soapy cloth. 

When he leaves the bathroom Ben is sitting at the table, glass of wine in hand. He goes over and sits down, picks up his own glass. “You said the installation was lagging on the Rectitude?” the man asks.

“Yes,” he pauses, thinking carefully how to word the next bit. “There’s something a bit- off, on that ship. I’m not sure if it’s just because it doesn’t have a Captain, or if it’s because the crew is smaller. Everyone seems- I’m not sure really. _Dazed?_ Vacant, in a way.”

Ben frowns. “I will visit it tomorrow and have a look around.”

He nods “I think that’s a good idea.”

“Do you think having a Captain might help?”

“Whether or not it solves the current problem I think both ships need Captains,” he says, sipping the wine. It’s good, as far as wine goes. “I would suggest Tchalrom as Captain of the Rectitude, he has served on that ship since it was launched, he is the highest ranking Officer aside from myself and Phasma that we have left, and he has an impeccable service record until the mutiny. I would suggest a thorough read of his mind and intentions first of course, but has there been any indication that he intends to betray us so far?”

The man thinks for a moment. “No, I don’t believe so. I’ll ask Neiro and Saiva, just to be sure. If you think he’s the best option then I agree with you. Do you have any suggestions for the Finalizer?”

He thinks for a moment. “Lieutenant Commander Bledt’im Je is the next highest ranking Officer. She was retrieved from the Supremacy and was in our medbay when the mutiny occurred. I believe she has recovered and is now fit for duty, but I don’t know very much about the woman. She has a good record, but she served with Snoke for a very long time. I would need you to read her mind and report to me what you find before I could comfortably suggest her.”

“Any other suggestions?” 

“We have a few Lieutenants, but it would probably be best to rule out Lieutenant Commander Je before we look further down in rank-” a chime at the door. The food has arrived. He gets up to let it in, but Ben gestures for him to remain seated and gets up himself. 

He sips his wine. Ben takes the tray of food from the kitchen tech at the door and dismisses him. The dark haired man brings the food over, a plate with his roast fish, greens and boiled grain and another with a huge slab of meat oozing pinkish juices into steamed vegetables and crispy roasted roots. 

The fish is alright. It’s not great, but it’s edible, as are the greens and the boiled grain. The bones crunch pleasantly between his teeth. He glances up as he’s chewing a mouthful to find the other man watching him, an unreadable expression on his face. It doesn’t seem like he’s displeased him, in fact there’s something almost fond there, but he may be reading too much into it. 

“I-” the man begins, as they’re eating. 

“What?” he asks.

The man’s mouth moves silently for a moment, then he shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

They eat for a while longer. He finishes his glass of wine, Ben offers him another. He accepts. “I have been thinking about the mission to Arkanis,” he says after a while.

Ben nods. “I have been too. I am not comfortable with the idea of just sitting around doing nothing while Savim takes what should be mine.”

“Whether we try to take the SCC by force or by infiltration,” he begins, having considered plans for both options without drawing any firm conclusions, “I believe our best option, as far as timing goes, is to launch the assault when Savim goes to deal with Mour at Ascension Base.”

“Because of the distance between Ascension Base and Arkanis?” the man asks.

He nods. “Yes, Ascension Base is located almost as far away in the Outer Rim from Dominion Base and Arkanis as it’s possible to get. Savim is the type who will lead her fleet in person, and, while she won’t leave Dominion Base and the local sector undefended, it will be a lot easier to slip past and land on Arkanis when the enemy fleet and enemy leader are gone. The goal is to take the SCC before she even realises we’re making the attempt.”

Ben thinks for a moment. “You’re sure she’ll go after Mour next?”

“Not entirely,” he replies. “Though I do think it’s likely. He has spent his long career first in the propaganda department of the old Empire and then in the same department in the First Order, and is already sending out public statements attacking her right to the title she’s stolen. Savim has always been proud, as long as we lay low I think she’ll go after the enemy assaulting her image first.”

“So we won’t make any statements or launch any attacks until she’s taken the bait,” the man says, and then sighs. “Sometimes I feel like we’re getting nowhere.”

“We’re not,” he tries to reassure him.

A pause. “I know. Thank you, once more, for all you’ve done.”

A flush rises to his cheeks. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s not used to this new world where Ben thanks him instead of attacking him. The man is looking at him again. He finds the blush intensifying. 

Conversation naturally dies off at that point. They eat in near silence, but it’s not uncomfortable silence. It is odd. It makes him feel odd. They say goodnight at his door. He gets ready for bed. He dreams strange dreams, unsettling dreams, dreams he does not remember the next day, and wakes feeling tired. 

In the morning Ben officially announces that he will no longer be going by the name ‘Kylo Ren.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all have a lovely day, or night, depending on your time zone.

He was wrong. Hux has freckles. 

Admittedly not freckles like Lem Umur’s. Instead of being little brown blotches Hux’s are odd little patches of pearlescence, but they’re still freckles. He’s sure the man didn’t have them before. They must be a result of all the time the redhead has spent out in the sun recently. Freckles. Pearly freckles. _Hux can’t be entirely human._ He wonders if Snoke knew? May the old bastard rot in every hell any being has ever conceived. 

Under the artificial light in Hux’s quarters the freckles had shone, not brightly, but enough to catch his attention. 

He feels agitated. He paces the halls back to his own quarters with his mind on the redhead. The freckles. The way Hux ducked his head as he lifted morsels of food to his mouth. Hux’s forearms, his shirtsleeves rolled up. More freckles. That pink mouth getting stained dark with wine. That long neck. Those pale eyelashes dusting his cheeks, brushing those freckles. That mind working away, solving all his problems.

He can’t have Hux. He can never have Hux. He’s so hard it hurts.

He wants to fuck someone. 

He wants to fuck Hux, but he can’t. He will never let himself be like Snoke.

Perhaps he should go find a willing officer, tech, or Stormtrooper, but then he imagines it. Imagines fucking someone other than Hux. Even the thought feels wrong, like betrayal. Hux isn’t his so it wouldn’t be cheating, but it feels like cheating. That can’t go on. He’ll have to get over it. He’s not sure he can live a celibate life right now.

For a moment, just a second, he wishes Luke had never betrayed him. That he’d been able to stay at the Temple, growing up and learning how to avoid attachment. He’d never been very good at it though. Dalie was evidence enough of that.

The moment the door to his rooms shuts behind him he gets a hand down the front of his pants. He jerks himself roughly, trying to keep his mind blank, but it doesn’t work, so he tries to imagine fucking Lem Umur again. That doesn’t work either. Red hair keeps shifting lighter, to copper, blue eyes turn the colour of the sea, brown freckles become pearly. He imagines touching those freckles, licking them, seeing where else they’ve formed. His mind flickers from image to image from his dreams, dreams where Hux was willing, eager beneath him. He imagines biting Hux’s pink nipples, burying his face against that long pale throat. He comes with a grunt. 

Stripping out of his robes he dumps them in the laundry chute before stumbling off to the washroom. He stands for a long time under the warm water of the shower, letting the liquid recycle itself over and over again. He feels pathetic.

He needs Hux, but does Hux need him? He feels like he might as well be dead weight that Hux is being forced to carry. He imagines the him of a few weeks ago realising how much depends on the redhead. He would have been furious. He probably would have killed Hux. _Childish,_ the thought comes in Snoke’s voice. 

As he dries off he looks at himself in the mirror above the sink. Snoke had called him a child. Luke had spoken to him like a child. Rey had treated him like one, a child that had to be led by the hand to do the right thing. The right thing in her mind. His father even- he hesitates. _Had Han approached him as if he was a child, or just as a man trying to save his son?_ Does he need saving? 

He doesn’t want to fall back in line. He doesn’t want to be ruled by others, forced to go along with what they think as if he doesn’t have a mind of his own. He no longer wants to live under someone’s else’s control. _He is a man._ He thinks Hux sees him as a man. A man to be frightened of, but still a man. The redhead only guides, doesn’t lead. _He needs to be a man worthy of Hux, even if he can never have him._

Dressed in clean robes he reaches out with the Force, connecting his mind to those of his knights, except for Rhadn who still does not respond. 

“Yes my Lord?” they echo.

“I will no longer be going by the name of Kylo Ren. From now on I am once more Ben Solo.” There’s no point pretending. He will not compromise in this to appease them. If they will not accept his decision he is prepared to act against them.

He feels their confusion, their agitation. Questions pour in from all sides, but it is Neiro’s he chooses to answer. “Forgive me my Lord, but is this because of Snoke?”

“Yes,” he replies, he does not think he can hide how much he despises the old Supreme Leader from them. 

“What?” he hears, and “Why?” “Why?”

“Because I am not Snoke’s creature anymore!” he snaps, then gathers himself. “I struck him down, I bested him. I refuse to live under the name he gave me.”

“So, it was you,” Xatjt states. He feels her satisfaction. “The man was a fool. I have no pity for him.”

“Who will lead us?” Saiva’s mental voice rises, nearing stridency.

“I will. I am still the leader of the Knights of Ren,” he needs to make this clear. Part of him feels fear that they will abandon him, but he will not let it rule him. 

“But you’re saying you’re not one of us anymore!” Saiva wails. 

“Isn’t he just saying he’s no longer ‘Kylo Ren’?” Jrii says.

“How can he be one of us if he’s not Kylo Ren?!” Saiva hisses.

“It’s different, isn’t it?” Neiro answers. “At least I think it is. We chose our names, didn’t we? I know I did. Snoke named Ben, like an owner names a pet.”

An unflattering comparison. A lance of anger, disgust, pain, resentment. Neiro is right, he suspects. If Hux was a thing to use one way, what’s to say he wasn’t a thing to use another? 

“He’s not a pet!” Saiva hisses. 

“No, I’m not,” he says. “Snoke was a fool. Snoke was weak. Snoke underestimated me.”

“Snoke underestimated a lot of things,” Neiro ads. “I think it’s good. Grand even. Ben Solo, Leader of the Knights of Ren.”

“It’s the Sith way,” Xatjt adds. “He has become the Master. Our Lord. It is only right that he throws off the mantle of servant and takes on a different name to go with his different role.”

“I will say that Sith don’t usually decide to revert to their birth name when they slay their Master,” Jrii says. “Though, my Lord, in honesty I think some of the Sith traditions are outdated.”

“You are both terribly clever. Aren’t they clever?” Neiro says. “I honestly haven’t thought much about it, but here’s you two contemplating ancient Sith traditions.”

“I don’t like it,” Saiva mutters. Through the Force he can feel dejection from the other man. The sense of being rejected. 

“I don’t think it’s up to you,” Jrii says. “It’s up to our leader to decide what name he wants to go by.”

“I agree,” Xatjt adds. “I support your choice. Ben Solo is a respectable name.”

“The rest of you?” he asks. Wary.

“Of course I support it,” Neiro says. “You know best, I believe that.”

“I do as well,” Jrii says.

“I still don’t like it, I think it’s undignified,” Saiva hisses, “but if you say you are still our leader then what I like doesn’t matter. Call yourself Ben, call yourself Kylo. It’s your choice.” And echo in the Force. _As long as you don’t abandon us._

_”I will follow where you lead,”_ Gydn’s voice cuts echoes through his mind, the first time the Knight has spoken. 

“Thank you all,” he says, feeling a bit awkward. It feels beneath his dignity to thank them, they should just do as he says, but his recent interactions with Hux have shown a tendency in himself towards ingratitude. 

“Of course, my Lord,” they echo. _”We live to serve,”_ Gydn says.

He dismisses them, aside from Saiva. “My Lord?” the man asks, nervous.

“Spar with me,” he orders. “In the morning.” 

A flash of eagerness. “Of course, my Lord.”

He dismisses the man. It is odd. He feels closer to them after this conversation than he has in years. Right now, at this moment, he can see the children they once were. Sort of. Perhaps not Gydn, but the rest of them. He gets ready for bed, feeling almost optimistic for once.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, leaving kudos and reviewing. I really appreciate it. I hope you continue to enjoy the story as it progresses. Uni will be starting in just over a week, so I won't have the same amount of time to write.

The crew seem to take Ben’s announcement well. He supposes it makes sense, there’s really no difference for them between Kylo Ren and Ben Solo, the man will treat them the same no matter what name he goes by. He has heard some murmurs, positive murmurs he thinks, about how much this will offend Leia Organa. The Resistance, it seems, is still the ultimate enemy, even with the First Order so fragmented. 

The most worrying, though not unexpected, news of the morning was reports of the fleet Savim is building. Her fleet should equal, if not outdo Snoke’s. The High Council must be very eager for her to win, to be throwing so much money behind her. There are even rumours that she’s commissioned a flagship for herself, one supposedly at least as grand as Snoke’s Supremacy. Arrogant woman. 

His father had despised her, possibly the only thing they’ll ever have in common aside from blood. Her family had been old Imperials who had quickly publicly shed their colours when the Emperor was defeated. Their daughter, already attending one of the galaxy’s most elite schools on Coruscant, had finished growing up as a citizen of the New Republic. Beneath the reformed veneer the family had kept its old Imperial connections, he believes even partially bankrolling some of the First Order’s early activities. When Savim had left school, with the highest marks of her year, she’d come straight to the Unknown Regions and joined up, rising quickly up the ranks. 

The few times they met had not gone well. She thought him corrupt, low-born, his rank a product of nepotism and not capacity. Underneath his reconditioning he thought she was a fanatic. Every bit the frothing zealot that his father was, but with stricter principles and less tendency towards hypocrisy. She was exactly the creature his father had tried to make him into but had never quite succeeded. 

The first time they met was a few months before he first met Snoke. He had been about sixteen, she was twenty-one. It had been a formal dinner, held by his father. They had been seated next to each other. His father had warned him very strenuously to be on his best behaviour towards her. On reflection it’s possible that the man had been considering a marriage between them, two old Imperial families, now important founding members of the First Order. 

Before the evening was done she had made it perfectly clear what she thought of all of them; that he was a bastard and the son of a common whore, and that his father was a depraved old fool with blood little better than his son’s mother, and that Martelle was corrupting herself every time she let Brendol Hux between her legs. Added to that none of them should have been allowed near the First Order, that their very presence would defile everything that she, and the other worthy members, were working towards. She had been very well spoken about it, of course, all those Core World manners. He’d been a little worried for a while that his father would have a heart attack. The man had survived. Survived to see her leave and then gone and taken his frustrations out on him and his mother. Even Martelle had sat at the breakfast table with a bacta patch over her new black eye. He wonders what Savim thought of life under Snoke. 

He cannot spend the whole day sitting around thinking of Savim. He intends to return to the Rectitude to finish what he gave up on the day before. Ben said that he would also be going to the ship, so it makes sense for them to go together on the same shuttle. He attempts to comm the man, but there’s no reply. He comms the bridge.

“General Hux, Sir!” the commstech greets, no hesitation.

“Where is-” a pause. Ben made no announcement of a new title. “-the Supreme Leader?”

He hears the Command Staff mutter amongst themselves for a moment. “In his Gymnasium, Sir.” 

“Understood,” he says. “Anything to report?”

“No, Sir!”

He ends the comm. He has the choice to either take the shuttle to the Rectitude by himself or go and find Ben, see if the man will want to join him. He should just go. Then he thinks of being on that ship, alone, once more, with everyone acting so strangely. He is being a coward. He is a coward. 

The Gymnasium is in the bowels of the ship. There’s a public area for Stormtroopers and techs to use, an Officer’s gym, and then the specialised one for Ben. Originally the man just used the public gym, but no Stormtrooper or tech would use it while he was there, and the cost of repairs and replacements for things he destroyed with his lightsabre had gotten so high he’d eventually gone to Snoke and begged for a specialised facility to be installed. The man had been amused, he remembers. No one else had been there when he’d made the request. Snoke had pulled him into his lap- anyway. Ben had gotten his gym, and that’s where the man is now. 

There are Stormtroopers and techs lurking around the door to Ben’s private gym when he arrives. He gives them a look, they all scurry away. Wondering what that was about he lets himself in. He hears a grunt, a thump. Moving further into the facility he follows the noise to Ben’s sparring room.

He peeks inside just as Ben knocks the legs out from under one of his Knights and dumps them hard onto the mat. Ben is wearing loose trousers, like the ones he was wearing when he met the man in the shuttle bay before they went to Skywalker’s island. That’s all. No shirt, no shoes. Just the trousers. The Knight is dressed head-to-toe in black, lighter clothing than they usually wear, though still in their mask, also barefoot. He thinks it’s Saiva Ren, based on the build. 

The Knight springs to his feet, launching at Ben. He watches the two men grapple for a moment. Compared to most men Saiva Ren is tall, well built, with wide shoulders tapering down to narrow hips. Next to Ben he looks small, less impressive. 

Ben’s muscles flex and bunch under his skin. He moves fast. Uses the difference in height and weight to his advantage. Saiva Ren get in a few hits, Ben grunts but doesn’t flinch. Ben flips Saiva Ren, but the Knight manages to regain his feet. They circle each other for a moment. A twitch of movement, Saiva Ren rushing Ben again. The dark-haired man uses the Knight’s momentum against him, slamming the man down onto the mat once more and pinning him. “Yield,” Ben orders.

A pause. “I yield,” the Knight answers. 

He feels flustered. Hot. He’s sure he’s blushing. Ben is so strong. He feels odd. Perhaps he should leave. He turns to go.

“Hux?”

He turns back. Ben’s muscles flex, he gets to his feet, releasing Saiva Ren. The Knight lies there for a moment, seeming to look at him through the mask. 

“Ben,” he greets. “You weren’t answering your comm.” He feels like an idiot. Of course the man wasn’t, the man was sparring. “I wanted to know if you wanted to share the shuttle to the Rectitude?”

The man blinks at him. Saiva Ren slowly gets to his feet. “Of course. If you just give me a minute I’ll go and-” Ben gestures at himself “-wash up.” 

“Shall I meet you in the shuttle bay?” he asks. It’s hard to look at the man. His eyes keep slipping down across the planes of his muscles. He’s embarrassing himself. 

“Yes-” Ben begins, and then “-No. No, I’m not sure how long I’ll be. I don’t want you wasting your time. I’ll comm you when I’m ready.”

“Ok,” he says. “I’ll see you soon.” 

He turns and hurries away, barely waiting for Ben’s acknowledgement of “Soon.” His face must be bright red.


	5. Chapter 5

He left Saiva in the gym and hurried back to his own quarters, washing and dressing quickly before comm-ing Hux. The redhead was acting strangely. He hopes the man is ok. He hopes he hasn’t done anything to offend him. Part of him, a small part, worries that something might have leaked back along the faded remnants of the link between their minds. Hux would be upset if the man knew what he’d done while thinking of him. Hux would look at him like Snoke.

When he gets to the shuttle bay Hux is normal. Polite. Himself. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just discomfort from seeing him sparring with Saiva. Perhaps Hux doesn’t like being reminded of his capacity for violence. He doesn’t know. 

He sits beside the redhead, in the small yet plush seat inside the small shuttle. A Stormtrooper is piloting. Perhaps one day he’ll pilot the shuttle for Hux himself. He has his own shuttle, just as he has his own fighter. 

“The Knight you were sparring with was Saiva Ren, am I right?” the redhead asks.

“Yes,” he replies. He shouldn’t be surprised. Hux seems detail oriented and Saiva has been stationed aboard the Finalizer, it makes sense the man should be able to recognise the Knight even with his mask. 

“Did you ask him about Commander Tchalrom?”

He nods. “He said there’s been no hint of treason in the man’s thoughts. I’ll ask Neiro when we reach the Rectitude, and then, later today, I was thinking I’d interrogate the man myself. If he passes are you happy for him to take command of the Rectitude from tomorrow?”

Hux nods. “That’s just what I was thinking Sir. When do you intend to interrogate Lieutenant Commander Je?”

“Later,” he replies. “If I have time, or tomorrow. I would like you there while I question both Tchalrom and Je.” He congratulates himself a little on remembering their names. So far the conversation is going well. 

“Of course,” Hux replies. 

It doesn’t take long for them to reach the Rectitude. Once docked he turns back to the redhead. “Do you wish to share the shuttle back?”

Hux frowns for a moment. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be. Comm me when you wish to return, if I’m not ready I’ll take another shuttle.” He agrees, though he has no intention of returning to the Finalizer without Hux. He keeps the thought to himself, he doesn’t want to make Hux uncomfortable. 

They part ways, Hux heading towards the Engineering department, while he heads towards the bridge. He can feel the Dark Side, sitting heavy in the air. It’s not buzzing, quick, active like it is when he channels it, instead it feels slow, almost sluggish. He imagines this might be the reason Hux reported the crew behaving as if they were dazed. The Dark Side effects Force-Nulls, makes them feel strange, even if they don’t realise what’s happening. He will have to have a talk with his Knights. He doesn’t want their carelessness with the Force impacting his capacity to destroy his enemies. 

He finds Neiro and Gydn on the bridge. Gydn seems to be staring out through the window into space, Neiro is standing almost back to back with the other Knight, watching the crew. “My Lord!” Neiro greets. “Welcome aboard this fine vessel.”

_“Welcome,”_ Gydn echoes a moment later. _”Let us serve you.”_

“Come with me,” he orders. The Knights leave the window and approach. He leads them away from the more populated areas of the ship. “Why is the air so heavy with the Dark Side?” he asks. “It’s impacting on the crew.”

A pause. He waits. Eventually Neiro speaks “Oh, yes. Sorry about that. A few days ago I got carried away meditating and it’s been lingering around ever since. It won’t happen again. I can safely say I’ve learnt my lesson.” 

He turns, examines the two of them. Gydn stands, perfectly still. Neiro shifts a little from foot to foot. He senses no danger from them. “Whatever the cause,” he says “See that it stops. We are preparing for war, we need the crew to be alert and capable of doing their jobs.”

Another pause. “As you say, my Lord. We’ll be more careful,” Neiro says. A gesture of the Knight’s head at Gydn. 

The other Knight responds _”Yes. We will be more careful.”_

He nods. “Good. Is there anything else to report?”

Neiro shrugs. “No my Lord. The ship’s nice and quiet, the crew’s hard working, no one’s thinking of betraying you-” a snort. A giggle. “In fact, my Lord, everything’s ship-shape. Wouldn’t you agree Gydn?” Neiro nudges their companion. 

_”Ship shape,”_ Gydn echoes. 

“Sorry my Lord,” Neiro says with a sigh. “She’s- well, you know what she’s like. Seriously though, things have been great. I really do have to apologise about this little issue with the Dark Side though. As I said, won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t,” he says, though it feels a bit redundant at this point. After a moment he asks, “What did you think of Commander Tchalrom when you were watching him? Did he give you any problems?”

“That Officer bloke?” Neiro asks, he nods. “No. No problems. Seems a hard worker. Popular with the crew. No thoughts of treason, if that’s what you’re asking. Why? Do you want us to kill him?”

_”Kill him,”_ Gydn echoes. 

“No!” he snaps. “No. The ship needs a proper Captain. We are assessing candidates.” 

“Ah,” Neiro nods. “He seems a likely sort. Stuffy enough for the job, like officer types tend to be.” 

He remembers Jrii’s words, suddenly, about Gydn seeing Hux in Snoke’s mind. Dismissing Neiro back to the bridge he asks Gydn to stay. Neiro hesitates for a moment, seeming torn, before turning and leaving. 

He looks at Gydn. “Jrii said you saw Hux in Snoke’s mind?”

A pause, then _”Hux?”_

“The General,” he begins, and then goes for a physical description. “About my height, thinner, with red hair.” _Pretty._

_”The redhead?”_ Gydn projects an image of Hux in full uniform, talking to a tech.

“Yes, that’s him,” a pause while he gathers his thoughts. “What was it you saw, about him, in Snoke’s mind?”

Another pause. _“Cannot explain. Can only show.”_

“Do so,” he orders. 

Gydn nods, slowly. An image, a moment of Snoke’s experience, memory, suddenly seems to swell his whole perception. _He is Snoke. Snoke is lying in bed. Snoke is looking at Hux. Hux is naked, asleep, lying on his back with his head turned away. He breathes as Snoke. He feels as Snoke. **Resentment. Longing. Want. Something else. Something that won’t be acknowledged.**_ The image disappears. 

He frowns. “Thank you Gydn. You may return to the bridge.”

The Knight nods. Turns, leaves. He doesn’t understand. Snoke had Hux, so why would Snoke feel like that? That feeling Snoke was repressing, he’s sure he knows what it is. He’ll need to think about it. 

He finds himself wandering the ship, waiting for Hux to be ready to go. The Rectitude is a little older than the Finalizer, and just a little less grand. It is still in good condition, still clean. The droids still bustle about, beeping. There is a little less gloss though, but then the Finalizer has almost been a flagship in its own right. The ship commanded by General Hux, or at times him, second only to the Supremacy while Snoke was alive. It must have galled those other officers that have now named themselves ‘Supreme Leader.’

Eventually Hux comms him. “Are you still on board the Rectitude Sir?”

“Yes,” he replies. “Are you ready to leave.”

“Yes Sir,” Hux replies. Hux seems to be using ‘Sir’ to avoid calling him by his name. 

“ _Ben,_ please Hux.”

A pause. “I think ‘Sir’ is more appropriate when we’re on duty.”

He wants to argue, he should argue, but maybe Hux is right. Maybe. At least while they’re on duty. He is still in charge, and that needs to be clear. “I will think about it,” he says after a moment. “Shall I meet you in the shuttle bay?”

“Yes Sir.”

They eat lunch together in Hux’s quarters. Rationbars to save time, Kaf for him and water for Hux. Then they summon Commander Tchalrom to one of the interrogation rooms. The man is compliant, he doesn’t protest or fight, and aside from the instinctive defences that everybody’s mind has the man doesn’t try too hard to keep him out of his thoughts. 

He finds no hints of treason. The man still feels more loyalty to Hux than him, but his choice to return to his birth name seems to have improved his standing in the man’s eyes. He discovers that Tchalrom has always admired his mother and that the man has had long held, though well concealed, suspicions of some of the Sith elements that Snoke brought with him into the First Order. In Tchalrom’s mind Ben Solo, as he is now, is a much more respectable figure to have as a leader than Kylo Ren, in the man’s memories a masked pretender playing at being Darth Vader. 

The only possible problem he foresees is that Tchalrom cares a great deal for his subordinates, but as long as he doesn’t kill them as readily as he has in the past this shouldn’t prove to be too much of an issue. He is trying. Hux doesn’t like it either. The man is also furious that the High Council has formally recognised Savim, a woman who treats her subordinates at least as badly as he does, and whom the man feels has achieved a rank unearned through her own actions. 

Once they’re done they dismiss Tchalrom. Hux looks at him. “He does not intend to betray us. I think he’ll be a good Captain,” he says.

“Shall I inform him of his promotion in the morning?” Hux asks.

He nods. “Shall we summon Lieutenant Commander Je?”

Lieutenant Commander Bledt’im Je is a few years younger than his mother. She’s a short woman, strongly built, with black hair turning steely grey tied in a neat knot at the base of her neck. She walks into the room with a slight limp, leftover from her injuries in the destruction of the Supremacy, and salutes neatly.

When she speaks her accent is almost identical to Xatjt’s, Guei’Ar Tji’s, their mannerisms too, have a similarity. They must be from the same homeworld, or perhaps the same system. 

The woman’s mind is cold, well organised. Her loyalty to the First Order is absolute, a loyalty born of the hardships her family endured under the New Republic. They were from Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei- and he was right, that was Xatjt’s homeworld- and during the days of the Empire her family, a lesser side branch of a lesser family, had been able to overthrow centuries of tradition and achieve high ranks. Herself and her siblings had gone to good schools, had access to good jobs, had been able to make good marriages. 

In the wake of the Empire’s fall Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei had turned back to an extreme, over-exaggerated form of tradition, the way some worlds do in the wake of life-shattering events. The families, like the Je family, who had risen out of obscurity into the spotlight had been driven back down again. Her family had lost everything. She had been thrown out of University just before attaining her PhD and had been barred from taking up any public position she had been training for. Stress and sickness had followed for her parents, her brother’s wife had left him and he’d had taken his own life, her sister- who had married into a better family- had cut all ties with them. When she heard the first whispers of the existence of the First Order she had sold everything she could to buy a half-derelict shuttle to make her way out to them in the Unknown Regions. 

She had gloried as Starkiller Base destroyed the Hosnian system, ruining the New Republic as it had ruined Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. At the same time her values are not the values espoused by those in the First Order that see it as humans first, elite first, well bred first, from the right planet first, with the right accent first. She sees the First Order as a way to enforce equality. To obliterate the traditions held by worlds that create a caste system which favours some only by the blessings of birth, traditions she feels the New Republic upheld as part of the cultural identity of those same worlds. 

Savim disgusts her. The woman’s principles are the same as those from her homeworld that saw the destruction of her family. As long as they intend to destroy the woman Lieutenant Commander Je will do everything in her power to assist them. 

She suspects, though she will not say, that he killed Snoke himself. This will not be a problem for her, as in the years leading up to the man’s death she had begun to doubt his principles. She has more faith in them. Hux is General Starkiller, a man born of his father’s low-blooded mistress who has attained rank through merit and acted to destroy the New Republic. He is Ben Solo, a man who’s very existence spits in the eye of the New Republic, especially now he’s reverted to his birth name. 

He feels tired when he dismisses her. Her anger is still as strong as it must have been all those years ago, though now tempered, less brittle than it would have been in her youth. A woman like that could be a great blessing for their cause, or a curse. “What did you find? Hux asks.

He glances at the redhead, “Shall we discuss it over dinner?”

“Yes,” a pause, an assessing look. “Ben.” Obviously they are no longer on duty. A small smile creeps onto his face unbidden.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found my old lj and old fanfiction.net account, under a different name. I was such an odd, pompous creature. I remember how much trouble I used to have replying to comments, I've always been shy and I'd get so nervous, sit there for minutes and most of the time just write 'thanks' or something, if I could bring myself to reply at all. I think I'm doing much better now, which is why I try to reply promptly to your comments and try to thank you all for leaving them, leaving kudos and reading in the chapter notes. This time I'd like to give a special thanks to darktensh17 for always commenting so promptly and kindly. I hope you all enjoy the chapter.

The rate of work has improved onboard the Rectitude. When he arrived in Engineering Head Technician Nsenta was much more alert, his explanations clear and concise, the decisions he’d made sensible. While they probably won’t be able to make up entire the time difference between the work on the Finalizer and the work on the Rectitude, if things progress as they have this day then the Finalizer should be ready only half a day before the Rectitude. Both ships should be prepared at least two days before all the droids are reprogrammed. 

He was glad to see that the atmosphere of the other ship seemed to have improved as well. It was not just Head Technician Nsenta who seemed more present, but everyone he spoke to responded promptly and seemed to have some idea of what they were saying. He almost feels as if he was imagining things the day before, in fact he would have thought it was just some strange delusion, except on the shuttle ride back Ben had apologized for one of his Knights channelling too much of the Dark Side and polluting the atmosphere of the ship. The Knight, Neiro Ren, had apparently promised to be more careful in the future. 

It was good to get the interrogation of Tchalrom and Je out of the way. Both had answered promptly, had seemed earnest, and if he was solely judging them from their outward behaviour he would have been reasonably comfortable with suggesting them for promotion. Having Ben around to read their minds added some security. As far as he knows they are both happy with the choice of Tchalrom. Je- Je he is still uncertain of. He still thinks Ben is uncertain of. 

It had taken a great deal of conversation before they decided to promote her to Captain of the Finalizer. Neither of them are entirely sure it’s the right thing to do. The way Ben described her mind makes her seem something of a fanatic, but a fanatic is always better to have onside than as an enemy. He remembers what he overheard Snoke saying, about him if he’s correct, about what a sharp tool a rabid cur’s weakness makes. Anyway, if things go wrong, if she proves too difficult, Ben can always deal with her. He won’t even complain.

Dinner was odd. He felt odd. He has found himself almost too aware of Ben ever since the morning when he saw him sparring with Saiva Ren. His eyes kept following the movements of the man’s body, his hands, his face, his expressions, his gestures. Every now and then he found a blush rising to his cheeks. He hopes that Ben didn’t notice. He still feels embarrassed. 

He feels tired as he gets ready for bed. There is so much to do, every day so much to do. He falls into a fitful sleep, wondering how Ben copes with the stress of it all. By killing people, he supposes. He dozes for a while, restless, and wakes a few hours later. He feels hot. Trapped by his covers. His body feels strange. Half asleep he shifts against the sheets. A soft noise, a little moan escapes him. It takes a moment. He wakes further. His prick is hard. He realises he’s aroused. 

Sitting up in the bed he looks helplessly down at his crotch. He must have been dreaming, but he can’t remember the dream. He doesn’t know what to do. It has been years since he’s woken like this, a lifetime ago. 

Lying down he resolves to ignore it, to try and go back to sleep. He can’t sleep. He feels agitated. When he closes his eyes his mind starts wandering. He remembers earlier, Ben, stripped to the waist, sparring with Saiva Ren. He shivers. Tries to force the memory away. 

Ben is so strong. His shoulders are so wide. He’s tall, well built. The man can lift him bodily without even needing the Force. He needs to stop thinking about it. It’s wrong of him. The man’s hands are so big.

He turns over, pulls the covers over his head. _What’s wrong with him?_

He remembers watching Sunny Adar load the skiff in the desert, the way the man’s muscles had bunched and flexed, nowhere near as impressive as the way Ben’s had. Shame. He feels ashamed. He is shameful. 

He turns over the other way, curling into a ball and trying to ignore the throbbing between his legs. 

In the desert he’d realised that he’d always found men attractive. He had tried to ignore it, tried to forget. Everything that had happened with Sunny Adar, and everything that has happened since, had helped prevent him thinking about it. 

Being attracted to men is bad enough. _What kind of man is attracted to men bigger than him? Stronger than him? Men that could pin him down with their bodies?_ His father would have killed him. Perhaps the man _should_ have killed him. It’s pathetic, effeminate like his father had accused him of being. 

He turns over onto his belly, and then flips back onto his back when the bed rubs against his hard prick and sends trickles of pleasure up his spine. _No._ He can’t do this. If he does this, feels like this, it justifies what Snoke did to him. _The man must have seen this in him._ He feels disgusted with himself. 

Still, his body won’t settle down. 

He could masturbate, but he hasn’t masturbated since he was a teenager, since before Snoke. As disquieting as the thought is whatever sexual impulses he might have had in the years since were either quashed or satisfied by the old Supreme Leader. He hates thinking of it. He hates acknowledging that his body had sometimes enjoyed the man’s attentions. He wonders what Ben would think, if the man would find him culpable if he knew. Maybe he is culpable. Maybe it wasn’t rape. Maybe he shouldn’t have told Ben it was rape. What if the man finds out later and is angry with him?

The fear and disgust he feels at himself finally calms his body down. His prick starts to go soft. It takes a while for him to fall back to sleep. 

He feels exhausted the next morning. He is too ashamed to leave his rooms. He bathes, chokes down half a rationbar, and summons first Tchalrom and then Je to inform them of their promotions. Both take the news well. A smile of real happiness breaks over Tchalrom’s face for a moment when he’s informed he’ll be Captaining the Rectitude. Je shakes his hand with one smaller but stronger than his, and looks earnestly into his face. “We’ll get her, I promise you Sir,” she says, obviously thinking of Savim. He dismissed them both with one weight a little less heavy on his mind.

There is no way he can bring himself to go find Ben, to see Ben, to talk to Ben, to be anywhere near Ben right now. He can’t bear the thought that the man might take from his mind any of what occurred in the night. Ben would be disgusted with him. His life would be in immediate danger. How could he blame the man for attacking him if he found out? He knows his relationship with Snoke made Ben uncomfortable. He can’t imagine the man welcoming the thought that he might have been leering at him. It probably wasn’t even Ben he was attracted to, it was probably just because seeing them spar reminded him of being young and having inconvenient crushes on his father’s cadets. 

He comms the Bridge and informs them, and Captain Je, that he’ll be working in his rooms for the day. There are still reports to go over, plans to finalize, the mission to Arkanis to consider. Captain Phasma is coming along well, her integration with her new armour has been successful and she will begin physical therapy soon. He should go see her. He doesn’t want to go see her. He cannot trust her. 

He works for long hours, pouring over writing on his pad. It’s hard to keep his mind focussed, confusion and shame war within him, but he forces himself. He skips lunch. Late in the afternoon his stomach starts rumbling, too used to being fed recently to go as long without eating as he has in the past. He gets up to fetch another rationbar, stretching his stiff and sore back as he does. A flash of movement. A skittering sound. His hand goes to his waist but he’s not wearing his blaster. 

Eyes wandering, searching for the source of the movement, he edges towards his blaster, still beside his bed. Another flash of movement. A tiny, spiderlike droid, skitters out from under his desk towards him. He lurches for his blaster. A hologram appears, projected from the front of the droid.

“General Hux, I have finally found you,” says the image of a faintly familiar man, older, going grey at the temples and dressed in garishly fine robes.

He grabs his blaster, points it at the droid. “Who are you?”

“Me?” the man places a hand over his heart. “You don’t recognise me? I’m wounded. My heart’s broken. I’m Gigin Swuey, Snoke’s personal banker. We need to talk about the will.”

He frowns. “What will?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” the man huffs. “What will do you think? Snoke’s will. He’s dead, isn’t he?” 

“Yes,” he replies. This feels very strange. He has no idea how this droid got onto the Finalizer, let alone into his personal quarters. Something has gone very wrong with the security on this ship. “I don’t know anything about his will.”

“Well he left you almost everything, didn’t he?” the man says. The world swirls around him. This is surreal. He must be dreaming. “I mean that bitch came and took a bunch of the First Order stuff, but I’ve still got control of his private accounts. You really need to come here so we can sort it out.”

He lifts a hand to his comm. “Ben,” he says when the man answers. “I need you to come to my rooms.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: sexual harassment. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, leaving kudos and comments. I find Gigin Swuey pretty gross, and I wrote him, I wonder what you'll think.

He rushes towards Hux’s rooms, one hand on the hilt of his lightsabre. The redhead had sounded unnerved. Something must be wrong. Techs, officers and Stromtroopers all but trip over themselves to get out of his way. Good. They are learning.

He’d spent most of the day sparring with Saiva. He hadn’t seen Hux, Hux was apparently busy in his rooms going over reports. It bothered him. He shouldn’t let it bother him. Still, it was almost like he missed the man even though he’d only seen him the night before. It also made him think of his mother, always busy, always reading something to do with the government of the galaxy. She’d had assistants though. Maybe Hux needs an assistant. If nothing has happened to the man.

Reaching out with the Force he opens Hux’s door, slamming it shut behind himself. Inside he finds the redhead, blaster drawn, looking pale. There’s a small droid, shiny chrome and spiderlike in front of the man, a hologram of a man projected from an iris in its front. 

“Who just enter-?” the hologram begins, and then breaks off as he walks over to Hux’s side, lightsabre hilt in hand. He must now be in the recording field of the droid because the hologram sighs, hangs his head. “Great, you summoned the apprentice.”

“What’s going on?” he asks, glancing from Hux to the hologram. This close to the redhead he can feel distress through the Force. 

“I suppose I’d better introduce myself, again,” the hologram of the man says. “Gigin Swuey, Snoke’s personal banker. Now if you wouldn’t mind-” the man shoos at him “-skedaddling. Me and the General have business to discuss.”

“He said he’s here about Snoke’s will,” Hux says. The redhead looks shocky. “He said Snoke left me almost everything.”

“Did you have to tell him that?” Swuey sighs. “You could try acting like you’re more than just a pair of legs and a pert arse.” The man turns his attention to him “It’s none of your business Sithling, so why don’t you run along play while the grown-ups talk.”

He ignites his lightsabre. Red light bounces across the room, reflecting in the droid’s silvery chrome. “Keep a civil tongue in your head,” he snarls. “What do you want? How did you get onto this ship?”

The hologram scrunches up his nose. “I am so scared, look at me quivering from all the way across the galaxy where you can’t touch me. As I said, it’s none of your business. Snoke didn’t leave you anything.”

“You come in here and start bothering my General,” he snaps. “Of course it’s my business.”

Swuey narrows his eyes, moves closer to peer at them until his head fills up the entire recording. The man snorts out a laugh. “Oh my. Oh me, oh my. Quite a fox Snoke has left in his henhouse.” The man steps back, his head shrinking and his body materialising once more. “Do you think it’s his business General?”

They both glance at Hux. Hux blinks. “If- If it concerns the finances of the First Order-” an apologetic look at him. As he still hasn’t decided what he wants their faction to be called he cannot be angry at the man for referring to it by its old name. “-then, as the leader of the First Order, I believe it does concern Ben.”

“That’s the thing though,” Swuey says, hands on hips and looking at them as if they’re both idiots. “It doesn’t concern the First Order. As I said, that bitch Savim came and seized all the First Order accounts, investments and properties. Not strictly legal, since Snoke left them to you, but who am I to protest when she’s got a whole platoon of Stormtroopers pointing blasters at me. No, this concerns Snoke’s private fortune, which she was too much of an idiot to even ask about. So no, I don’t think it does concern ‘Ben.’”

“I don’t understand,” Hux says, shaking his head. The redhead’s hand is quivering a little on his blaster. “Why would he leave it to me?”

“I asked that myself,” Swuey says. “I did do my best to advise him against it, but you know Snoke- stubborn old bastard, may-he-be-one-with-the-Force. Anyway he’s hardly the first man to get led astray by his dick.”

Hux gets paler, if such a thing was possible. For a moment he thinks the man is going to faint. “Watch how you speak to him,” he snarls, stepping between the hologram and the redhead.

“Or you’ll what? Pout me to death?” the man raises a brow. “I sent R0M-R here out of the goodness of my heart, you know. I didn’t have to pursue this, I didn’t have to come and tell you about the fortune you have waiting. I could have just let it go. Worse, I could have told Savim all about it. Is it too much to expect at least a bit of gratitude?”

“Gratitude?” he hisses. “For breaking onto our ship? For speaking to us like that? How do we even know you are who you say you are and not a trap sent by the enemy?”

A pause. Swuey seems to deflate. “That’s a good question young man, I suppose you must be the brains of the operation.” Swuey perks up. “Oh wait, I’m not a complete fracking idiot. Here,” a gesture and his image disappears, to be replaced by a document. The man’s voice can still be heard, saying “A copy of the will.” He peers at it, eyes flicking from line to line. It looks legitimate. Before he can read it in too great a detail it disappears, for a moment Swuey is displayed again, only for another gesture to replace him with a holo-still. He freezes. He feels Hux freeze behind him. Swuey is talking again, “And here, if you don’t believe me when I say I knew the man. Me and my old friend, may-he-be-one-with-the-Force, and who’s that lounging about in his lap? Why it’s a man with the audacity to act like we’ve never met before. Even if you don’t remember me, I remember you ginger-fluff.”

Footsteps. The sound of the washroom door opening and closing. Hux has left.

He stares at the holo-still. In the image Gigin Swuey and Snoke sit in a lounge in what looks like some expensive club or resort. The chairs are fat, cream leather. The background is gilded. A more than half-naked girl, somewhere in her teens, sits on Swuey’s lap, another, a mostly naked green skinned male Twilek presses up against his side. Both the older men are drinking, crystal glasses filled with something lifted high as if in salute. The thing that catches his eye. The thing that his eye can’t escape from is the figure in Snoke’s lap. Hux. Much, much younger than he is now, dressed in the merest scrap of pale silk. The redhead’s expression is completely blank. It might as well be a doll the old Supreme Leader is fondling. 

The Dark Side rises in him. He longs to reach out and destroy this man, but he can’t. The man is not here, the man is too far away. 

The holo-still vanishes. Swuey returns. He extinguishes his lightsabre. “What does General Hux have to do to claim his inheritance?” he asks. 

Swuey assesses him for a moment. “I get it, you’ve got your eyes on the prize. Who wouldn’t. Snoke, he was a wealthy man. So, since this is proving more trouble than I expected- tell you what, we’ll just say that as long as I’m handing over the goods to General Hux I’m doing what my old friend wanted, it’s not up to me what happens to them after.” A nasty smirk “So you just bring his little ginger arse here, make him sign a few things, give his geneprint and we can call it a day. I’ll even help facilitate the transfer of the assets from him to you, for a small fee of course.”

“Of course,” he replies, forcing his expression to remain calm. He has no intention of taking the money from Hux, but if that’s what the man needs to believe to tell him what he wants to know, so be it. “Where’s here?”

“Usually Coruscant,” the man replies, nonchalant, “But with that bitch lurking about calling herself ‘Supreme Leader’ I can see why you might not want to make an appearance anywhere so populous. I’ve got a little place I like to go on the weekends, it’s only a little moon, you know, but a man makes do. I’ll send you the coordinates.”

“You do so,” he replies and waits. The coordinates arrive. The man has sealed his doom. He is going to go there and rip every foul, filthy thought, every memory of Hux from the man’s mind. Then he’ll destroy every other holo-still, and anything else the man has with Hux in it. Then he’s going to kill him and burn his ‘little moon’ down around his corpse. “I will see you soon,” he says with a smile. 

The hologram vanishes. He stares at the droid for a moment before reaching out with the Force, lifting it and crushing it. A long, forlorn beep is the last sound it makes. He dumps the dead thing into Hux’s rubbish chute and then walks over to the washroom. He can feel distress through the door. 

Inside he finds Hux, hunched over the sink and staring into the eyes of his reflection. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to handle this. “The holo-still-” he begins. 

“I wasn’t lying,” the redhead says, voice sounding agonised. “I don’t really remember him.”

He mustn’t have been there for that part of the conversation. It doesn’t matter. “Did Snoke ever-” he doesn’t know how to put it. He thinks about it. Knows he’s going to say the wrong thing. “You looked very vacant,” he begins. “There are different ways of using the Force to control someone. Some give the- the _victim_ \- more autonomy than others. Did Snoke-“ he takes a deep breath. “You said Snoke reinforced your father’s reconditioning, I think that would have meant that you had a reasonable amount of autonomy to act in ways defined by Snoke’s control, but did he ever take more direct control of your mind? It would have felt like being a puppet, being trapped inside while he moved and spoke for you. You may not even fully remember what happened at the time.” 

Hux looks away, he can see tears welling up in the redhead’s eyes. The man nods. A hand comes up, wipes at his face. “Sorry, sorry. I’m being very pathetic right now.”

“No,” he insists, stepping forward. Hux flinches away. He feels like a monster. 

“I think it was at the beginning,” Hux says, still looking away. The man’s voice is hoarse. He’s obviously trying not to cry. “I have some memories, fragments of memories. Strange places, people. He must have stopped after a while.” Hux sniffs, wipes his face again. The man turns back to him, not meeting his eyes. “You intend to meet Swuey and try to gain Snoke’s assets? I heard you talking after I left. It’s a good idea, our faction could use the funds.”

“I intend to meet him and rip his fucking head off,” he snarls, regretting the aggression a little when Hux blinks at him in shock. “The money is immaterial. We’re well positioned currently.” He’s not sure how Hux will take him insisting he intends to kill the man for the redhead’s sake, so he rephrases it a little. “I can’t leave a man like that running around, a man that knows things that could make us vulnerable and obviously has no courage to stand up to our enemies. He has to die.”

A pause. “I agree. If what he says is true he’s willing to come to a compromise with Savim.” Another pause, Hux frowns. “I do think we should try and gain Snoke’s assets though. I thought it was only the High Council bankrolling her, but her plans for her fleet make more sense if she’s seized some of Snoke’s resources. I do not like the idea of her returning to Swuey and seizing the rest.” 

“You are right,” he says after a moment. “We need a plan. Why don’t we return to the main room to discuss it, where it’s a bit more comfortable?”

Hux nods. “I just, I need a minute. I’ll meet you out there?” 

“Of course,” he turns to go.

“What happened to the droid?” Hux suddenly asks.

“I destroyed it,” he says, looking back.

Hux looks very, very pale. “Good,” the man says. “We can’t afford to have something like that spying on us. We’ll have to review our security.”

He nods, leaves the small room. He hears Hux suck in a deep breath behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting quickly because I have to go out in a minute. Hope you all enjoy.

He feels very cold. He’s shaking. He hates himself. Those memories, half dressed and hanging off Snoke, obviously they were real. He can’t imagine, can’t bear to imagine, the things he might have done. There’s no time for this, he needs to pull himself together. Ben is waiting.

He takes a deep breath. Another. Another, the latter devolving into a sob. No. He clenches his fists, forces himself to meet his own eyes. _No._ There’s no point getting upset. Everything has already happened. It’s in the past. The only thing new is the knowledge that Snoke left him almost everything, whatever _almost everything_ actually means.

He splashes a bit of cold water on his face. His eyes feel hot. One more deep breath. He forces himself to leave the bathroom. 

Ben is standing in the middle of the room, glaring at nothing. As he walks closer he can feel the Dark Side, or at least that’s what he’s come to think that buzzing, whining sensation is, thick in the air around the man. The shame from earlier is back, and added to it this new, remembered shame. He can’t quite make himself meet the man’s eyes. “Do you want to sit down?” he asks. 

Ben startles, dark eyes focussing back on the here and now. “Yes. That’s a good idea.”

They make their way over to his two steel-framed armchairs and sit. It’s all very awkward. “We can’t take the fleet,” Ben begins with. “Swuey’s ‘little moon,’” the latter is said with disgust, “is at the edge of the Core Worlds. We’ll be too vulnerable.”

“So, a shuttle?” he says.

Ben nods. “Yes. You and me and a small party. I want some Stormtroopers with us, for the intimidation factor if nothing else. The Knights will have to stay and guard our ships. The mission shouldn’t take more than a couple of days.”

This is not an ideal time to be forced to split their forces and leave any part of their faction vulnerable. After a moment’s thought he says “I don’t know how that man, Swuey found us, but he now knows the location of our fleet. We will have to give orders for it to move before we go. There are several regions which are rarely visited, so I suggest we select one and have the fleet move to there in the interim. If this mission takes more than a few days they will still risk being spotted, especially if Swuey contacts Savim and reminds her of our existence, so I think we should leave orders with Tchalrom and Je to move and keep moving if something delays our return.”

“It won’t,” Ben says, face grim.

“In case it does?”

A sigh. “Give the orders,” the man says. “Just in case, but I intend to do everything in my power to make sure it doesn’t. That man needs to be dealt with quickly.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “He will probably have guards, he seemed very confident for somebody knowingly talking rudely to a-” he frowns. “I’m sorry, I realise that I don’t actually know what to call what you are. I’ve been thinking of you as a ‘Dark Jedi,’ but that’s just what my father called Snoke when he first spoke of him.” 

“Snoke was a Sith Lord,” Ben replies. There is a pause. He finds himself glancing at the other man. Ben is looking to the side, deep in thought. After a moment he shrugs. “I’m not sure what I am. As far as my Knights are concerned I am still Sith, but this is something else I have to consider.” The man’s dark eyes meet his before he can look away “I am not Snoke. Everything that he was must be erased.”

He’s not sure what to say to that. After a moment he gets back to the issue at hand. “There is still the possibility that this is a trap. I know you can take care of yourself, but we should be cautious, and I think we should take Stormtroopers with combat experience.”

“I will protect you,” the man says, voice perfectly serious, “if anything happens.”

He’s not sure how this makes him feel. Flustered, almost. _If Ben knew everything would he still say that?_ He doesn’t know. It takes a moment to regather his thoughts. “Thank you,” he says, because it feels like the right thing to say. A funny look comes over Ben’s face. He almost thinks the man might be blushing. “We need to be careful not to alert Swuey immediately to our plans, or he will send a communique to Savim.”

They discuss things for a while longer. They will take a small, fast shuttle with a hyperspace drive, two squads of Stormtroopers- one the same one as he took to Maneshfva, and Lieutenant Mitaka to pose as his personal assistant- which should help build the illusion that their interest in Swuey is material and not murderous. Mitaka and that particular squad were chosen for the loyalty and discretion they’d shown, both on Maneshfva, and on the island in the case of the Lieutenant, FN-2188 and FN-2439, on the chance that Swuey lets anything incriminating slip. Which he will, based on their interaction with the man already. The other squad was selected for its battle experience and capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. They had fought with the Resistance more than once, and had walked into a trap on one occasion, worked out it was a trap before it could be sprung, and turned the advantage back against the Resistance to win the day. 

They will leave this evening, after he’s issued a complete review of the ship’s security and orders for their absence.

“Do you want to eat together, before we go?” Ben asks. 

He shakes his head. “I don’t have any appetite.”

“A rationbar at least?” the man prompts. 

“Later,” he says, waving away the offer. 

They go their separate ways. He packs first, before comm-ing Captains Je and Tchalrom to give his orders. That done he organises the shuttle, Mitaka, and the Stormtroopers. He feels very tired. He doesn’t want to have to do this. He does have to do this, Ben will need his signature and geneprint. 

He wishes the things Snoke had done had died with the man. In the moments before he has to head to the shuttle bay the question of _why_ Snoke would have made him heir starts bothering him again. It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. He could understand Snoke leaving everything to Ben, the man was his apprentice Sith- if he’s using that term correctly- but not him. He has no idea what he was to the old Supreme Leader. A bit of fun, a _convenience_ he would have thought. Nothing more. They didn’t speak much, he listened because Snoke liked him to listen, but he can’t remember sharing many of his own thoughts. If he can call them his own thoughts. There’s a disconnect there, he can remember having them but at the same time they feel alien to the person he is now. Sometimes he feels like a much weaker person now.

He smooths down his greatcoat, picks up his small case and heads out. Closing the door behind him. As he walks towards the shuttle bay the crew stop and salute, he nods acknowledgment as he passes. Right then the ship feels like home for the first time since Snoke died. Perhaps it is simply because he’d rather stay than go where he’s headed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a terrible moment of self doubt last night, sure this story was turning into rubbish and that everyone would get sick of it soon. I really hope that's not the case. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, leaving kudos and comments. I hope I manage to keep the story going without it turning into what I was afraid of last night.

Rey had tried to reach out to him while he was packing for the mission. He’d been folding a robe when the world had gone silent. He’s felt her, like a breath on the back of his neck. He hadn’t let his side of their bond down far enough to see her but still her voice had filtered through. _“Ben, please talk to me. What’s going on? Are you ok? Has something happened to you? This woman called Savim is calling herself the Supreme Leader of the First Order and we’ve heard nothing-”_ he’d slammed up his side of the connection. He didn’t have time to get distracted by her. She didn’t really care. It was a trap.

The shuttle is small, crowded with himself, Hux, that officer Mitaka and two squads of Stormtroopers. The trip has taken them overnight by ship time. The Stormtroopers and Mitaka had slept in shifts in the crew cabin, while he and Hux had retired to the two tiny officer’s pod berths, barely larger than coffins. He didn’t sleep well. Looking at the redhead he’d say Hux didn’t do much better. 

Mitaka is piloting. He sits opposite Hux in one of the eight narrow, but well padded, black leather officer’s chairs. Hux is staring out the window, his own gaze slips from the expanse of space to the redhead and back again. Behind Hux the Stormtroopers sit, row on row, in their own seats. This is not a vehicle made for comfort, but it is the least assuming and least First Order looking shuttle they have with a hyperspace drive. 

They are less than an hour from the moon, called _Private Paradise_ on official star maps. It’s marked as privately owned. He imagines Swuey named it himself. Out the window he can see Core World systems. It makes him uneasy. They are relying heavily on not being detected, the shuttle doesn’t have much in the way of weaponry to defend them. 

Fury keeps bubbling up beneath the surface of his mind. He has the sense that things are going to happen at their destination that he won’t like. The Force isn’t warning him of any real danger, but it doesn’t sit quietly within him. Perhaps that’s his own uneasy mind. He’s worried for Hux. The man seems faded. _He’s worried for himself._ The more he learns of Snoke the more he questions why he ever followed the man to begin with. _Power,_ that was it, or perhaps it was _fear._

Growing up he’d always felt _wrong._ He’d tried so hard to fit in at Luke’s temple, tried so hard to be a Jedi like his mother, like his uncle, wanted. It had never felt right, it had always felt like he was playing a role. He would try to put aside his anger, but at the same time he’d know instinctively that his anger could lend him strength, so he couldn’t fully commit to the Jedi way. He would try to put aside his passion, but a world without passion seemed grey and faded, so he couldn’t fully commit to the Jedi way. In everything he could never fully commit to the Jedi way. There had always seemed too much ambiguity in life that being a Jedi refused to acknowledge. 

For a moment he wants to reach out to Rey. He wants that connection again, mind to mind with another Force user, but he doesn’t. He can’t. He has to be strong.

He thinks of his Knights, thinks of the fleet under the protection of Gydn, Saiva and Nero, thinks of Jrii and Xatjt looking for his child, thinks of Rhadn, who-knows-where doing who-knows-what. He should have asked the others about the missing Knight. He will have to remember to when this mission is over. 

Private Paradise orbits around a blue gas giant recently named Laguna in a system that was called Felkin when he was a child, but was renamed Elysium when it was bought by a private developer about ten years ago. None of the six planets in the system are inhabitable, comprising gas-giants, and planets with unbreathable atmospheres or catastrophically unpredictable weather systems. It’s not the planets that first attracted the attention of the developer, but the dozens of small rocky moons orbiting each one, ripe for conversion into private getaways for the stupendously wealthy. Laguna, once Qiqrek, is the outlier as it has only five moons, and is considered the most elite address in the system. Private Paradise is the second largest of the moons, and orbits the planet the furthest from the rest, giving it the near constant illusion of privacy.

They signal down to the moon, get landing permission, and descend onto what looks like a tropical paradise. At least three quarters of the world’s surface is intensely blue-green ocean, the other third is one large island and a collection of smaller ones. They head towards the larger island, an expanse of lush rainforest and white sandy beaches. As they approach he can see a mansion, almost a palace, made of steel and glass, in amongst the trees and jutting out over the water. 

The shuttle touches down on a landing pad on the complex’s roof, at height with the tree canopy surrounding them. They disembark in silence. There’s no one around. There should be guards but he sees none. A noise. A metallic sound like snick, snick, snick, snick, snick gets closer. His hand goes to his lightsabre, everyone else’s hand goes to their blaster. The door leading to the complex opens and a mobile hologram platform walks out on spidery, chrome legs. As it gets closer a life-size image of Gigin Swuey materialises, smoothing down his elaborate, embroidered robes. 

The platform comes to a stop in front of them. He gets a good look at the man, or at least the image of the man. Older than his parents, swept back brown hair going grey and receding a little at the temples, pale eyes. If the image is accurate the man is shorter than both he and Hux, of medium build running a little to seed. There’s a heavy, slightly swollen look to the man’s face that might speak of too much heavy drinking. He must have been relatively good looking in his youth, with regular, even features, currently pulled into a cocky smirk that must be a common expression if the pattern of his wrinkles is anything to go by. 

“This is not what we agreed,” he says, hand still on the hilt of his lightsabre. 

“I’m not a complete fracking idiot,” the man says. “I’m hardly going to wave my soft and fleshy form around under the nose of a cranky Sith. I can still get the job done by hologram, don’t you worry your-” the man scrunches up his nose “-not so pretty little head about that.”

Fury rises, the Dark Side with it. The ground begins to shake beneath them. Gigin Swuey’s image remains unperturbed. A hand touches his arm, gently. He looks over at Hux. The redhead gives him a look, as if to say remain calm for now, and steps forward. “Of course,” Hux says to Swuey. “Why don’t you lead the way. We’re all eager to get this done.”

“I’m sure you are Cupcake,” Swuey says. His image rotates on the platform, which starts back the way he came. “Follow me.”

His hand clenches on the hilt of his lightsabre. _Cupcake?_ How _dare_ the man. Hux’s hand, still on his arm, tightens. He glances at the redhead. Hux looks at him. From a great distance he gets the impression of words in the redhead’s voice. _“I don’t know if this will work. I don’t know if you can hear me. If you can, play along for now. Let him transfer Snoke’s assets but watch him, closely. The man is so arrogant he is bound to make a mistake, we’ll track him down.”_

It’s the first time a Force-null has ever successfully reached out and communicated with him. It must be the remains of the link between their minds. He nods, just the smallest movement of his head. A sense of relief from Hux. The redhead removes his hand, the sense of relief gets weaker with the loss of contact. He wants to reach out, take Hux’s hand in his, connect their minds fully once more. He doesn’t.

They follow the hologram back into the complex. Everyone alert, all eyes open for hints of danger, all hands hovering near their weapons. There’s no one here, not even a droid to be seen. 

“Now were you wanting to see the sights, have something to eat, maybe a drink or two first, or is it just down to business?” the hologram asks as they walk down polished concrete hallways edged in glass, looking out onto the beach. 

“What do you think?” he snaps.

“Tetchy aren’t you?” the man says, his hologram spinning around to face them even as the platform continues in the other direction. “I’ve got a reputation as a gracious host, but as you’re bent on being no fun I suppose we’d better go this way.” The platform changes direction, heading through a door in the hallway into an entirely different hallway with one side glass looking out onto the rainforest. 

“My Study’s through here,” the man says eventually, leading them through a doorway into a shorter hallway with windows on both sides, and then into a room that might as well be an aquarium. The walls and ceiling are glass, the floor polished concrete. The room juts out into the forest canopy with nothing beneath or beside it. Dominating the space is a large desk made of steel, with a black marble top veined in silver. Behind the desk a high-backed black leather chair sits, fatly padded and thronelike. In front of the desk are two small, steel framed chairs with thin leather seat cushions. The legs of the chairs are slightly shorter than usual, so whoever sits in them is positioned to be loomed over by Swuey sitting in the chair behind the desk. 

The hologram platform comes to a stop by the desk. The image of Swuey gestures, a holographic projection appears above the dark marble surface, another copy of the will. “For your inspection,” the man says. “I can explain anything that’s too hard for you to understand.”

Fighting down a sneer he approaches, Hux approaches. Standing side by side they look at the document. It doesn’t go into great detail of Snoke’s finances, it doesn’t have to. All it says is that, aside from a single moon called Ahden, also in the Elysium sector, and two million credits- both of which the man left to Gigin Swuey, the executor of his will- the entirety of his fortune, both private and that entangled in the First Order, as well as his rank and his command of said organisation, are to go to General Armitage Hux at the time of his decease. _Armitage._ Hux’s first name.

“How much are we talking about here?” Hux asks, glancing at the hologram.

Swuey shrugs, expansively. “As I said that bitch Savim took most of it when she seized the ‘First Order’ assets, but the remainder’s got to be worth-” the man scrunches up his face, thinks for a moment “A couple billion credits, at least.”

“This is insanity,” Hux breathes. The redhead takes a moment to compose himself, then looks at the hologram. “He really never told you why?”

“Oh I could speculate,” the man says, smirking. “But that wouldn’t be nice. At the end of the day his money, his business. It wasn’t like he had anyone else to leave it to. I mean, aside from me, but I got my slice.” 

A gesture and the will disappears, a series of formal documents awaiting signatures and geneprints appearing in its stead. “We’ll do the transfer to General Ginger now,” Swuey says, looking at him, “but I’m afraid we’ll have to wait twelve Galactic Standard Hours before we can transfer it from him to you-”

“No,” he snaps. He still has no intention of taking the money from Hux. As long as it stays out of Savim’s hands, the hands of any of their enemies, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t need it. 

Swuey must misunderstand him because the man says “Oh stick your bottom lip back in. It’s not me, it’s the banks, it’s _regulations._ ” 

“There’s no way to shorten the wait?” Hux asks. He glances at the redhead. _Does Hux really think he intends to take the money from him?_ The man can’t believe that. Can he?

“You really must have fluff for brains,” Swuey says, looking at Hux with incredulity. “What kind of idiot is so keen to give up that kind of cash?”

“I don’t want Snoke’s money,” Hux says, simply. He hears, echoing, the thought _’I am not his whore.’_ **Guilt.** That’s what he called Hux, he remembers now, back before he understood what had really happened. He was such an idiot.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your wonderful, encouraging comments. I still feel some of that self doubt, which is annoying me. I wonder if it's in part because Uni is starting next week and I won't have the time to write like I have been, so on some level I'm worrying that I'll end up just not writing at all. I hope that's not the case. I really do want to continue writing this story. I've started keeping back a few chapters now so I'll have a bit of a buffer zone to keep posting for a while if life gets in the way.

“You are a strange creature,” Swuey says with a shrug, then a smirk. “Sorry sugar-tits, I don’t make the rules. You’ll have to wait like everyone else.” 

He feels Ben lurch forward. He reaches out, grabs the man again. If Ben destroys the hologram now they will have come all this way for nothing. The Dark Side is heavy in the air. That whine, that feeling like standing beside a Dreadnought’s engines, is rattling around in his head. It seems as if the way Swuey is speaking to him, referring to him, is angering Ben, but he’s not sure he really understands why. Perhaps it is simply because he represents part of the organisation Ben leads, and any disrespect to him is disrespect to Ben. There is a temptation to think that it’s more than that, but he won’t indulge it.

Somewhere, squashed deep down, he feels furious. _How dare Swuey speak to him like this._

“Well,” he says, voice carefully level. “The sooner we transfer Snoke’s assets to me, the sooner we can transfer them to Ben. So, shall we begin?” He feels like any moment his composure is going to crack. He doesn’t know what will happen when it does. He’s afraid to find out. 

“If you’re sure Cupcake,” the man says with a shrug. The hologram gestures at the documents, explaining what each one relates to and where he has to sign or leave his geneprint. It is strange, all of a sudden Gigin Swuey is completely professional. There’s none of his put-downs, his sarcasm, his inappropriate comments. Perhaps it’s his work persona. A man can’t be so rude to his clients all the time and expect them to stay. 

It seems to take forever. He notes the different assets. Properties, vessels, investment accounts, businesses, vaults in various banks, the list seems to go on and on. Snoke had obviously well diversified. He thinks of the ships they can buy, the weapons- even if they never manage to retrieve the rest of Snoke’s legacy from Savim, even if the mission to Arkanis fails, this will be enough to give them a real start at clawing back what they’ve lost.

When the final document is signed and geneprinted Swuey gestures and they all disappear. “So it’s-” the man peers at the chronometer, a fancy old fashioned thing mounted on a slab of snowy alabaster at the corner of the desk, “1207 Galactic Standard Time. Looks like we’ll be ready for the next step just after midnight Galactic Standard Time. In local time the sun will just be cresting the horizon once more.”

“We will return to our ship until it’s time,” he says.

“You really are no fun,” Swuey says. “Look around you-” an expansive gesture of the hologram’s arms, “-look at all this beauty. Clear water, warm sand, peace and privacy. I have a fully automated kitchen, a fully stocked bar, enough guest rooms that all your little friends-” the man turns that expansiveness to encompass the Stormtroopers and Mitaka “-could have one each and there’s still be plenty to spare, and what? You’ll return to your ship? Other than your arse I have no idea what Snoke saw in you. That man, at least, knew how to have a good time.”

This seems to be the final straw for Ben because the man lurches forward, lightsabre drawn. The very tip of the wavering, red blade is shoved under Swuey’s nose. The hologram seems unperturbed. “Yes?” the hologram says, “And?”

Ben’s dark eyes are fixed on the hologram’s face. His nostrils are flaring. “Do. Not. Speak. To. Him. Like. That.” He bites out. 

“Oh grow up, kid,” Swuey says, simply. “Go back to your ship killjoys. I’ll see you again in eleven hours and-” another glance at the chronometer “-fifty-four minutes.”

He can see Ben debating what to do. Eventually the man extinguishes the lightsabre, turns, and stalks away without another word. He follows. Mitaka and the Stormtroopers follow after. 

When they emerge out onto the landing pad Ben stops. “I need to talk to you,” the man says, a glance at Mitaka and the Stormtroopers. “Stay out here,” he says to them. “Guard the shuttle.”

He follows Ben inside, wondering what the man is thinking. When they reach the main area of the shuttle, crowded as it is by so many seats, Ben stops. The man stands there, facing away from him for a moment. Eventually Ben speaks, still turned away from him. “I want you to keep Snoke’s assets.”

“No,” he says reflexively. Thoughts bubble up at the back of his mind, memories, his own guilt, Ben’s words calling him Snoke’s whore. “No!” he shakes his head.

“I should never have said that,” the man says, finally turning to face him. Ben’s expression is pained. “I didn’t understand, I didn’t even _try_ to understand what had happened, what he’d done to you.”

Ben must have read the memory from his mind. He feels a creeping kind of fear. _What other thoughts can the man read? What if he knows about the moment of attraction he felt?_ He doesn’t know how to close his thoughts off to others, but he tries. He imagines a wall around his mind. Makes it thick, impermeable. 

Ben flinches. “How did you-?” the man begins. Shakes his head. “That’s not important. I meant what I said, I’m not taking the money.”

“You must!” he insists. “Even if everything goes wrong we can use it to restore our faction to some of its former glory.” He looks away, “Anyway, I can’t keep it.” His skin crawls at the thought. It would be like Snoke had bought him. It would make him Snoke’s whore.

“We have enough for now,” Ben says, “and when we destroy Savim we’ll take back what she stole. Our faction doesn’t need the money, not in the long run. I want you to have it. You deserve to have it, after what he did you.”

“I am not Snoke’s whore!” the words make it past his lips. He can’t bring himself to bite them back. “I will not be bought and paid for!”

“I-” Ben begins. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant-”

“What?!” he snaps, anger clawing its way free of his control. “What did you mean? I don’t understand. What are you hoping to gain by leaving me with Snoke’s assets? If you’re trying to buy me too, I already told you I wasn’t going to leave!”

“I AM NOT SNOKE!” Ben roars. For a moment it is as if he is in a world without sound, the roar of the Dark Side becomes so intense he feels stunned. The shuttle shakes, rocking violently. He stumbles, catching himself on one of the chairs. He stares at the man, at Ben panting, heaving in great gulps of air, and glaring at him balefully. He wonders if this is it, his death. If Ben is going to kill him. He doesn’t want to die.

Ben steps forward. He flinches, curls into himself, waits for the blow. It never comes. When he looks up Ben is standing there, arms by his side, an agonized expression on his face. “I’m-” the man begins. 

He raises a hand, cuts off the man’s words. “As I said, I am not keeping Snoke’s assets. I will meet you back in Swuey’s study later to do the transfer.”

“Where are you going?” the man asks, voice small.

“I need a moment,” he replies. “To think.”

He turns to leave the shuttle. A hand darts out, grabs his arm. He freezes. _Snoke, grabbing him._ Not Snoke. It’s not Snoke. It’s Ben. “Please let me go,” he says, voice quiet. He doesn’t know if Ben will. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Ben doesn’t.

The hand releases him as if scalded. “I-” Ben begins, stops. Then. “It’s not safe to become separated.”

“I won’t go far,” he says, and begins down the ramp. “I’ll bring some Stormtroopers.”

He gestures to a couple of them, FN-1996 and FN-2091, to follow him when he reaches the bottom of the ramp. For a moment it seems as if Ben will chase him, but eventually all he does is gesture for another four Stormtroopers, FN-2515, FN-1899, FN-2404 and FN-2173, to join the first two in guarding him.

He walks across the landing pad to the door back into the complex. Inside there is an elevator leading down to the forest floor. The Stormtroopers surround him, eyes roaming about, hands on blasters. They see nothing, no one. He’s shaking a little. 

Ben didn’t kill him. Ben let him go when he asked. _He doesn’t want to die._ Thoughts swirl through his head. He feels caged. Trapped. Too hot. It feels like Snoke is breathing down his neck, the man’s hands bracketing his waist.

They leave the elevator and walk through a small glass atrium out into the forest. The air is cool down here, and smells pleasant. He can smell the sea, like every sea a little different and yet so familiar to the smell of home. There’s a path leading through the trees towards the beach, that’s where he heads.

Small lizards scramble away, back into the undergrowth as he passes. Their bodies are blue, iridescent, with shockingly pink heads. He sees birds, small and grey, with enormously long spindly legs and beaks picking their way amongst the trees. One stops, freezes, staring off into the distance and then flares out its wings revealing stripes of brilliant red. It screeches, threatening. He follows its sight line. Another bird, same species, flaring its own wings. Males, or perhaps females, competing for territory. Flashes of movement amongst the canopy up ahead hint at other life, but the leaves obscure his vision too much to work out what type.

The air is warmer out on the beach. A pleasant, slightly sharp wind blows, bringing with it the smell of the ocean. He steps out onto the sand and heads towards the water, stopping just out of reach of the white foam of the waves. Little crab-like creatures scuttle about, iridescent yellow. He sees bubbles coming up from beneath the sand, possibly molluscs of some kind. 

He told Ben he wanted to think, but that’s exactly what he doesn’t want to do. He wants peace. At least for a moment. He watches the waves for a long time, letting their rhythmic movements empty his mind. His breathing slows. His heartrate slows. It feels like his consciousness spools out, becoming the water, the life in the water, the microorganisms beating against the shore with the waves, the crab creatures picking their way across the sand, the molluscs in their burrows beneath, the fish darting here and there, flirting with disaster upon the beach. It feels like he is expanding, becoming more and more of the world. The larger creatures that swim out past the shallows, hunting. The birds in the sky that dart down and catch fish or get caught by predators lurking beneath the sea’s surface. The plants deep down below, being blown by the ocean’s currents. The forest with its lizards and life, teeming with life, everywhere teeming with life. A disturbance. Something un-alive, creeping across the sand towards him. He blinks. Reality comes back. Whatever delusion he was in fades. 

The hologram platform comes closer. The Stormtroopers shift, their hands go to their blasters. He watches Gigin Swuey approach. “Heya dollface,” Swuey calls out when he gets closer. “I saw you out here and I just thought I’d come down and have a chat.”

“What do you want?” he asks. He does not want to have to talk to the man. He feels calmer though, as if he can manage it.

“Just a bit of private business, between you and me,” the hologram gestures between them. “So maybe your honour guard could step back and guard your honour from a bit of a distance.”

“I’m afraid not,” he says, starting to turn back to look at the sea.

“Oh, I’m not sure you’ll want them listening to what I have to say,” the man says, smirking. 

He assesses the man. The smirk doesn’t fade. He thinks of the holo-still, the version of himself it showed, more naked than not and in this man’s company. A glance at the Stormtroopers. He gestures for them to back up a bit, close enough that they can defend him if they have to, but far enough to give the illusion of privacy. “What is it?” he snaps.

The hologram leans in close, a smirk on his face. “I came to make a deal,” the man mock-whispers. “Look Cupcake, you can’t really want that nasty oaf getting his paws on what’s rightfully yours, can you?”

“Ben is the leader of the First Order,” he rebuffs. “Snoke’s assets are rightfully his assets.”

“Don’t play the loyalty act with me pet,” the man purrs. “You’re only letting him get his way because you’re scared he’ll rip your head off if you refuse. I know what Sith are like, I was ‘friends’ with Snoke for a very long time. They aren’t an overly sentimental lot.”

“Ben is not Snoke,” he snaps. It’s true. Snoke would not have let him go earlier. 

Swuey laughs. “They’re all the same. The sooner you learn that the better off you’ll be.” The hologram leans even closer, if such a thing was possible, until his face is at the very edge of the projection field and starting to go a little fuzzy. “Anyway, I was thinking- you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Just say the word poppet and I won’t facilitate the transfer from you to him. I’ll say I’ve seen the light, been visited by an apparition of my old friend- may-he-be-one-with-the-Force, and that I realise now that it’s _wrong_ to go so thoroughly against his wishes. Yeah? That way it won’t be your fault,” a laugh, “and it’s not like he can make me do it. I’m not even here.”

“No,” he says. “I mean it when I say I don’t want Snoke’s assets. I refuse to keep them.”

“Oh come on,” the man whines. “This act, whatever it is, loyalty or righteousness, it’s getting tiresome. Give it a rest.”

“Bugger off,” he snaps, losing his temper. He turns and begins back towards the complex. 

The hologram platform scrambles to cut him off. He glares at Swuey. “Sugar,” the man says. “Dollface. Cupcake, please, just-” the hologram reaches out, if the man was flesh and blood those hands would be closing on his shoulders right now. Speaking low, urgently the man says “I’m not usually one for gingers, or male humans, but do you remember that night on Canto Bight? He had you dressed up in this little lace number, white lace, and I could see just about _everything_. You had my dick fit to burst. He was a bastard though, old Snoke, he let me look all night but he wouldn’t let me touch-”

He whirls away, stomping backwards across the beach. His skin is crawling. He feels sick. 

The platform pursues him, the Stormtroopers rush over with their blasters drawn, Swuey keeps talking. “So I was thinking, maybe you promise to give me a taste, you know, sometime in the future, when it’s just me and you, then as I said, I won’t transfer the assets to what’s-his-face.”

“Fuck off!” he shouts, whirling back to face the hologram, drawing his blaster. “Fuck off you disgusting, horrible man!”

“You think this new Sith is going to keep you?” Swuey says with a laugh. “You think you give up the cash and that way you won’t get hurt, but you’ll still reap all the rewards? You’re getting old now pet, a few more years and things will start to go saggy and baggy. You think that pouting Sith you’ve got hanging on to your every word will still be sniffing around when those wrinkles around your eyes-” the hologram never gets to finish the sentence. The world goes white.

He blinks away the afterimages and finds the platform a smoking ruin. Ben stands there, face white with fury. Around them patches of sand make tick tick noises as they cool off. Force lightning again.

“I know where he is,” Ben says once the man has regained enough composure to speak. “I sensed him through the Force. He’s here, hiding beneath his mansion.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kudos and lovely comments, I can never fully express how much I appreciate them.
> 
> 5ofSpades created this http://5ovspades.tumblr.com/post/171337612182/for-runrarebits-series-descent-more absolutely gorgeous piece of fanart. Isn't it beautiful? I am so flattered.

He feels horrible. Guilt tears at him. He scared Hux, he grabbed Hux, he made Hux think he was trying to buy him. He might as well be Snoke. The shuttle rattles with the Dark Side. He needs to calm down. He needs to calm down. _Hux closed his mind to him. How did Hux close his mind to him? Even if it was only for a moment._

Hux wants space. He needs to give Hux space. Hux is not safe on this moon. Hux is only safe if he’s with him. He needs to calm down. If he can just calm down he can reach out and encompass Hux in his Force sense, can guard the man, can keep the man safe without crowding him. 

He flops down into one of the officer’s chairs and forces himself to breathe. In and out. In and out. He needs to clear his mind. He can’t clear his mind. He has to clear his mind. 

Starting small he reaches out and senses the shuttle, feeling its shape, the materials from which it’s made, the residue of life that people have left inside it. It takes a long time. Every now and then thoughts break through, _guilt_ or _I didn’t mean it like that_ or _what if he hates me now?_ He needs to ignore them. It doesn’t matter. If Hux is angry. If Hux hates him he can cope. He will have to cope. The important thing is making sure Hux is safe. 

From the shuttle he reaches out to the landing pad, sensing the Stormtroopers and Mitaka milling about. He feels worry, anger, disgust in the Force. None of them like Gigin Swuey. None of them appreciate the way the man talked to and about Hux. Or even to him. He is their leader, those who insult him insult them as well. Mitaka, FN-2188 and FN-2439 in particular are worried about something. He gets an image of a handsome, dark-haired man dressed in white from the surface of the officer’s mind. The image of Hux, blaster drawn and distressed from FN-2188 and FN-2439. It almost pulls him back into himself. He forces his attention away. He will worry about it later. 

From the landing pad he reaches out, sensing for Hux. The man is not directly nearby, so he reaches further. His consciousness flows through the complex, Swuey’s empty mansion, no life anywhere inside. Not even the strange life-but-not of a droid. The closest he finds is the kitchen, fully automated as the man said.

His consciousness reaches ground level, sweeping out across the forest floor. The forest feels alive. The plants, the animals, the fungi, the microorganisms, all of it glows within his awareness. Hux is not here either, but he finds a trace of the man, the space made by footsteps, by scent in the air, by observation by the other lifeforms. Hux headed towards the beach. He begins to push his consciousness that way but something-

Part of his awareness has sunk beneath the moon’s surface, under the complex. He feels something. It catches his attention. A droid. Two droids. More droids. Cleaning droids. They are leaving charging stasis, they are moving deeper underground. He lets his consciousness follow them, curious.

They roll along long corridors to a wall. One reaches out, opens an interface, connects itself. Movement begins, deeper down. An elevator. The wall opens, the droids roll inside. Still, he follows them. They go down, down, down, down into the moon’s crust. He can feel electrical components somewhere down beneath them. Shapes. Rooms, with thick, reinforced walls. 

The elevator stops, the droids roll out. They continue along a corridor for a while until they reach a door, thick, armour-plated. The same droid as before connects itself to an interface. There are beeps. A pause. The door opens. He follows the droids inside.

There is Gigin Swuey, standing on a holographic recording platform. In front of him a faint hologram of the world outside. Of Hux, standing on a beach and staring at the man with barely concealed anger. “Ben is not Snoke,” he hears Hux say, his voice distorted a little by the wind blowing into the microphone.

Gigin Swuey laughs. “They’re all the same. The sooner you learn that the better off you’ll be.” The man leans close to Hux, so close that they would almost be touching if they were in the same room. Rage bubbles up inside him. He pulls his consciousness back, hearing only part of what the man says next “Anyway, I was thinking- you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Just say the word poppet and I won’t facilitate the transfer from you to him. I’ll say I’ve seen the light, been visited by an apparition of my old…” Swuey is bothering Hux. 

His eyes open as Mitaka climbs into the shuttle. “Sir!,” the man says, saluting. “FN-1996 has reported that the hologram from earlier has approached General Hux and is-”

“I know,” he snaps. “With me.”

He storms out of the shuttle, Mitaka and the Stormtroopers scrambling to catch up. The trip from the landing pad to the beach seems to pass in a blur. His consciousness reaches out ahead of him, finding Hux and Swuey standing on the beach. He listens from what feels like a great distance as the hologram speaks, as Hux tells the man to fuck off. He hears Swuey proposition Hux. He feels Hux’s distress. His anger. His own rage burns within him. 

He reaches the beach in person as Swuey says “You’re getting old now pet, a few more years and things will start to go saggy and baggy. You think that pouting Sith you’ve got hanging on to your every word will still be sniffing around when those wrinkles around your eyes-” he lashes out. Force lightning arcs from his fingertips and earths in the holographic projection platform. The world goes white for a moment. Then it’s over.

They won’t have long. Swuey must know what he’s done. “I know where he is,” he says between gulps of air, trying to contain his fury until it will be of use. “I sensed him through the Force. He’s here, hiding beneath his mansion.” 

Hux nods, pulling himself together, hand still on his blaster. “Lead on.”

He leads them back into the complex, using the Force to navigate their way down, down to Swuey’s hideout. Once they reach the door he ignites his lightsabre and burns his way inside. He can hear yelping. Swuey’s voice getting louder. “Oh fuck, oh fuck,” the man is whining. There’s a scrabbling sound, then the noise of a blaster going off. He feels the bolt slam into the wall just beside the door. 

He kicks the part of the door he’s cut loose inwards and stalks into the room. The cleaning droids beep wildly in alarm. Swuey tries to shoot him again, he deflects it harmlessly aside with the blade of his lightsabre. He reaches out with the Force, grabs the man, pulls him in close. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Swuey is yelping. He can smell urine. The man has pissed himself. 

One hand on the back of Swuey’s neck he forces the man to his knees. “Apologise to General Hux,” he orders.

Hux stands in the doorway, flanked by Stormtroopers. All have blasters drawn. All pointing at Swuey. 

“I’m sorry!” the man wails. 

“Sorry for?” he snarls, shaking the man.

“I don’t know! Whatever you want me to be sorry for!”

“For speaking to him like that,” he says. “For treating him like that. For _thinking_ of him like that.”

“Yes, that,” the man yelps. “I’m sorry for all of that.”

He looks at Hux. Hux looks impassively down at Swuey. 

“Not good enough,” he says, swinging the lightsabre. Swuey’s head lands by Hux’s feet. The redhead looks at it for a moment, then prods it with the toe of his boot. 

“Good,” is all the man says. 

“Sir!” that’s Mitaka’s voice. He looks at the man. The officer has gone over to Swuey’s work space and is looking with dismay at a display. “He’s contacted Savim, told her where we are.”

A glance at each other. “We have to leave,” Hux says. 

“We need to destroy this place,” he says.

“We have a few short-range missiles on the shuttle, they’ll have to do,” Hux says. 

The redhead leads them back the way they came, cleaning droids fleeing just behind them, and then from ground level up to the landing pad. He feels annoyed, unsatisfied. He had planned to obliterate this moon. To wipe any trace of Swuey from existence. He tries to calm himself. Tries to remind himself that Swuey said his home was on Coruscant. That even if he destroyed the moon there would still be remnants of the man somewhere out there. 

They load into the shuttle and take off. “You’re the best shot we have,” Hux says, gesturing towards the cockpit. FN-2439 gets out of the co-pilots seat as he pushes himself into the small space. He takes the seat, next to Mitaka, and brings up the missile controls. The shuttle circles back around the complex, he watches the cleaning droids fleeing towards the beach, he reaches out with the Force. He feels the moment, the perfect moment. He launches the missiles. They strike true. 

He feels the impact reverberate through the complex, all the way down, down to where Swuey’s body lies. Fire follows. Destruction, not absolute but good enough. Glass and steel fall slowly inwards until all that remains is rubble.

He gets out of the co-pilot’s seat and makes his way back to the main cabin. In the cockpit Mitaka sets their course. They leave the moon’s atmosphere and jump to hyperspace. He feels it, fwump fwump, just as they leave. Two Star Destroyers materialising, just a moment too late to spot them. So close, too close. 

He breathes out a sigh. “Fuck.” Hux looks at him. “We were almost caught,” he explains. 

“ _Fuck_ indeed,” the redhead mutters. 

They sit in silence for a long time. Eventually hunger gets the best of him. “Do you want a rationbar?” he asks.

Hux looks up from his contemplation of space streaking past. “Okay,” the redhead says, nodding.

He gets up, fetches two bars and two bottles of water, comes back and hands Hux’s over. The redhead takes them, unwraps the bar, looks at it. 

“I didn’t mean-” he begins, glances at the Stormtroopers, then leans in close and speaks quietly. “I don’t think of you like that, as Snoke’s-” he can’t quite bring himself to finish the sentence. “I am sorry I ever said it.”

Hux looks at him for a moment. “You were shocked when you found out,” the redhead says, voice even.

He nods. “I was. No excuse though, if I’d looked deeper at what I took from your mind-” he trails off. “I shouldn’t have done that either. I have not treated you well.”

Hux doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The redhead shifts the rationbar back and forth in his hand, looking at it. “You let me go earlier, when I asked you to. Thank you for that.”

“You shouldn’t have to thank me,” he replies, voice urgent. “I should not have grabbed you.”

There is a pause. Eventually Hux lifts the rationbar to his mouth and takes a bite. After a moment he does the same. They eat in silence for a while. When Hux is done the man rolls up the wrapper and starts to twist it between his fingers. “When we return to the Finalizer I’ll organise the transfer of Snoke’s assets to you myself,” the redhead says, eventually. He opens his mouth to protest. “No,” Hux shakes his head. “Don’t. Please don’t. Let me do this.” The redhead rubs a hand over his face, sucks in a deep breath. “I keep wondering why he did it, I almost can’t bear the thought. I will feel better if it all goes towards building the better future you spoke of.”

He wants to argue, but right now he can’t find the words. Maybe they’ll come in time. It’s not as if Hux is going to transfer the assets right this moment. “Okay,” he says eventually. “Okay.”

Hux nods, relieved. They fall back into silence. It will be hours before they reach the fleet. He feels very tired. It feels like the day has gone on forever. He starts to doze off, head hanging forward, heavy on his neck. 

“Supreme Leader, General Hux, Sirs!” FN-2439’s voice startles him. He flails back upright from where he’s slumped in his seat. By the time he’s sitting properly Hux has asked the Stormtrooper to report. “We’re being comm-ed by the Finalizer,” the man says.

He shares a glance with the redhead. Almost as one they get to their feet and head into the cockpit. “General Hux here,” the man says.

“General,” acknowledges Captain Je. “Be advised that we have been spotted by the Vanquisher,” the woman says. The ship was part of Snoke’s fleet, involved in the mutiny. “We have entered hyperspace on an evasive course but, as you know, the Vanquisher has hyperspace tracking technology installed and both myself and Captain Tchalrom believe that she had enough time to lock onto us first.”

He feels the mood in the cockpit plummet. Mitaka’s hands tighten on the controls, FN-2439, seated once more in the co-pilot’s chair glances at the officer. So far it’s one ship to two, but the Vanquisher might summon backup. They may lose part, or all, of their fleet before they can even return to it. 

Hux frowns for a moment, “Contact Systems Technician Semsyin,” the redhead orders. “She works onboard the Finalizer. She was part of the project that developed hyperspace tracking. She has been working on an experimental hyperspace signal scrambling program in case the technology ever fell into enemy hands. If she thinks the scrambler is workable get the techs installing in on both ships ASAP and then report back.”

“Yes Sir!” Je says. They can hear her relaying the order to the Command Staff. 

“In the meantime continue evasive manoeuvres,” the redhead orders. 

“Yes Sir!”

There is a little more back and forth between him and the Captain, the result of which is the knowledge that nothing of note has happened on the ships, the installation of the droid charging stations is progressing as expected, droid reprogramming is happening slightly faster than predicted, there was no obvious lead up to the appearance of the Vanquisher, both ships are prepared if there is a battle, and that any rendezvous between their shuttle and the fleet will have to be put off until the situation has been sorted. The comm ends with Hux ordering Je to report back the instant anything changes. 

“Of course Sir,” she says.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all. Thank you so much for still reading, leaving kudos and commenting. Uni starts on Monday and I am so nervous. It's been a few years since I last studied. I am still having problems with self doubt, I'm afraid. I know where I am yaking the story next but I'm not sure of the ramifications of yhis choice.
> 
> Once more 5ofSpades has created some beautiful fanart. I am so thankful. http://5ovspades.tumblr.com/post/171404517772/for-runrarebits-series-descent-sunsnake-and

“We’ll need somewhere to lay low.” He frowns down at the shuttle’s display, “How are our fuel reserves?”

“Sixty-three percent Sir,” Mitaka answers. The shuttle, while it does have a hyperspace drive, is not made for long-haul journeys. 

“We need to drop out of hyperspace and conserve fuel for now,” he glances at the shuttle’s starmap. “Perhaps we should conceal ourselves in this asteroid belt for the time being.”

“Yes Sir,” Mitaka replies, dropping them from hyperspace and changing their course. Standing behind the pilot’s seat he watches as the officer guides them amongst the asteroids and then sets their engines idling. A glance at Ben. Ben is glaring out into space. He can feel the Dark Side coming off the man.

They wait. Eventually the Finalizer comms again. “General Hux, Supreme Leader, Sirs!” 

He acknowledges Captain Je.

“Systems Technician Semsyin believes her scrambler will work. All techs are working to prepare the ships for installation. Current estimates suggest it will be five or six hours before the work is complete.”

“Good,” he says. “How are fuel reserves?”

“Holding,” the woman says. “If worst comes to the worst we still have full back-up tanks thanks to our recent resupply. While this is not an ideal situation, we are currently well positioned to weather this storm.” 

“Very good Captain,” he says. “Keep me updated.”

He goes to end the comm. “Sir?” the woman, says, voice a little hesitant.

“Yes Captain?”

“While it does not concern our current situation I thought you should be made aware of two things.”

“Go on.”

“First, Savim has made a public announcement decrying us as traitors and offering a sizeable reward for any information that might lead to our capture or destruction. She has offered a bonus if that information relates to yourself of the Supreme Leader. Secondly, and this might not be all that important, but Nai’Qui Dal, the jailed opposition leader of the Stone Way Party of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei has managed to get a statement smuggled out of his prison condemning the First Order in the strongest terms possible. Part of this statement has been a savage personal attack on Savim.” He remembers that Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei is Je’s homeworld. Even if the woman renounced her citizenship a long time ago some part of her must feel concern about this action bound to bring down Savim’s ire. 

“Thank you for informing me Captain,” he acknowledges. They end the comm. 

He glances at Ben. The man is frowning. “Keep us informed,” he orders Mitaka and FN-2439. They return to the main room of the shuttle and take their seats. 

“Do you think the scrambler will work?” Ben asks.

He nods. “I worked on the hyperspace tracking project myself. Semsyin is a brilliant scientist, though a difficult person to manage. She was convinced the entire time that the technology would fall into enemy hands, and in some ways she was more interested in finding ways of blocking it than developing it in the first place. It was very hard to get her attention away from this side project at the time, though now I’m glad that I let her work on it and continue developing it even though we could have used her attentions elsewhere.”

Ben hums an acknowledgement. A pause, the man seems to be thinking. “This might affect the mission to Arkanis,” Ben says. It’s not a question.

He sighs. “Yes. We’ve attracted Savim’s attention now. We can only hope Mour does something in the next few days to attract it back.”

Another pause. “If the scrambler doesn’t work?” Ben asks. “If something happens and we lose the fleet?”

“The ships are well armed, your Knights are there to defend them. Even if they get pulled into battle there’s no guarantee they’ll be lost,” he says, trying to reassure both of them. After a moment he adds, “If worst comes to the worst we’re still here,” a bitter laugh, “We still have the funds to rebuild, especially now, with Snoke’s assets.”

“I hate this,” Ben hisses. The bones inside his face itch, his eyes rattle. That whine, the whine of the Dark Side, gets louder. The shuttle rocks. “If I was there I could do something to help!”

He reaches out, places a hand on the man’s arm. The whine fills his head, high pitched, makes him nauseous- then vanishes. Ben is looking at him. Those dark eyes are focussed so intently on his face. Embarrassment rises. He can feel Ben’s muscles through the cloth of the man’s robe. He goes to pull his hand back- Ben reaches out, takes it in his own, larger one.

They sit for a moment, perfectly still, holding hands. He can feel the blush suffusing his face. He feels terribly aware of the other man. Of the strength in his fingers beneath their gloves. He’s not sure where to look. 

Eventually Ben releases him. Slowly he pulls his hand back, sits back in his chair. 

It is getting late by ship’s time. He is beginning to feel even more tired than usual. Spending so much time in the shuttle’s chairs is making his back and legs ache. Another five or six hours to install the scramblers, then however much time on top of that to make sure the scramblers work, then more time for the fleet and themselves to make it somewhere safe to rendezvous. “Do you want some Kaf?” Ben asks.

He shakes his head. “No thank you.”

He watches as the man gets up and heads towards the back of the shuttle to the small galley. His dark hair is a tangled mess, hanging heavy around his dour face. His shoulders are wide, his body solid. He takes up the entire isle between the rows of seats. Ben is a large man. He looks down. Shame edges forward again.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this story, leaving kudos and comments.
> 
> I am very sorry to say that I think I have burnt myself out a bit writing as intensely as I have. I enjoyed it while it lasted though. I believe that I need a break for a while. I don't know how long, and in honesty if I will return to writing the story. I hope I will.
> 
> I said not that long ago that I was writing ahead, keeping a few chapters back. This has now bloated past 20,000 words. I intend to upload a chapter of what I've written every day until it runs out. I will try to keep responding to all your comments, you have been a truly wonderful audience to write for.
> 
> I am so sorry about this.

The hours pass slowly. Eventually the Stormtroopers begin to retire to the crew cabin once more to sleep in shifts. Mitaka and FN-2439 switch with FN-2311 and FN-3006 in the cockpit. He and Hux retire to their own officer’s berths, leaving orders to wake them immediately if anything changes. 

The ship feels on edge. He feels on edge. He feels helpless. His mind keeps going back to Hux’s hand held in his own. He can’t sleep.

There has to be something he can do, something that won’t make him feel so useless. There’s nothing he can do to help the situation with the fleet, nothing he can do to undo what Snoke did to Hux, nothing- there is one thing he can do. He’s been putting it off since he tried the last time and got nothing but visions of the mirror for his troubles. He can reach out to the Force, to try and find his child. It won’t help with the current situation, but it will give him something to do other than sit around uselessly.

He closes his eyes, lying back in the tiny space of the officer’s berth. His is stacked on top of Hux’s. Hux is somewhere beneath him-that thought is not going to help him clear his mind. He pushes it away. He focusses on his breathing. In, out, in, out. He reaches out-

His consciousness starts to reach for Hux. He reigns it in. No. He needs to focus outside the shuttle. He tries again. In, out, in, out, in, out- His child. He thinks of his child. He thinks of Dalie, the baby in her arms. He remembers. He focusses on the eyes of the child in his memory-

_His mother stands before him. She’s frowning, bent over a display. Dameron is with her, also bent over the display. That traitor Stormtrooper is saying something, gesturing to an image on another display._

_“We still don’t know what’s happened to Ben,” a voice, Rey’s voice, comes from somewhere nearby._

_“I don’t think it matters at this point,” his mother says, looking up and over to him. “Savim is the immediate danger. We can’t ignore the threat she poses to worry about him.”_

_“Savim’s worried about him,” Rey says. He still cannot see her. “That announcement she made earlier-”_

_“Savim’s got more than him to worry about,” Dameron interrupts, looking up and over to him. “We’re sure this intel is correct?”_

“Supreme Leader, General Hux, Sirs!” a Stormtrooper’s voice shatters the vision. He shakes it off. He doesn’t understand. He had been searching for his child, why had the vision shown him his mother?

“Yes?” Hux’s voice comes from somewhere beneath him. He hears the man move around, crawling out of the small berth. “Report.”

He follows suit, dragging his boots back on before climbing back into main part of the shuttle. As he emerges the Stormtrooper says “We are being comm-ed by the Finalizer.”

They hurry to the cockpit. “Captain Je, report,” Hux says. 

“The scramblers have been installed ahead of schedule, we are about to commence testing,” the woman says. 

“Keep us informed,” Hux orders. 

They wait in near silence, minutes pass, half an hour, a little more. The Finalizer comms again. “There was an issue with the scrambler onboard the Rectitude, but it has been fixed,” Je says when they acknowledge the comm. “Both scramblers seem to be working correctly currently. We have engaged them. We have changed course and are preparing to leave hyperspace in the Outer Rim near Tatooine. We will report the outcome.”

“Do so,” says Hux.

Another wait. 

Je comms again. “The scramblers worked,” she says, relief obvious in her voice. “The Vanquisher has not been able to follow us.”

He feels more than hears Hux sigh with relief. “Very good Captain.” They talk for a while longer, arranging for a rendezvous in another, rarely visited sector. The Pyol System, a system which is almost derelict. Once, long ago now, long before the Republic and the Empire, the Pyol System had been a centre of trade, arts and education, until civil war between the planets wiped out most life as well as rendering most of them uninhabitable. The few populated outposts are barely hanging on, most of them involved in smuggling or the production of illegal substances. So far the system has avoided attracting the attention of any of the major players, or even anyone who wants to mine it for resources. It should be safe enough as a rendezvous spot. 

They return to the main section of the ship. He heads towards the small galley at the back to fetch some more instant Kaf, knowing by now that Hux won’t want any so he doesn’t bother asking. He passes Mitaka leaving the crew cabin with FN-2188 and FN-2439, the officer heading over to Hux. As he prepares the Kaf he can vaguely hear the darkhaired officer asking Hux for an update.

He brings over a bottle of water and hands it to the redhead, sipping the Kaf as he takes his own seat. He feels eyes on him. Mitaka and the man’s two paramours, watching him through their helmets. He looks back, they turn their attention away.

He feels tired. He didn’t get any sleep. His mind goes back to the vision, to his mother. She had looked so much older than she did the last time he saw her. She has a grandchild. Unless he tells her she will never know. He wonders if the vision was of the moment, of the past, of the future, real at all. He hadn’t seen Rey, but he’d heard her. If the vision was of real events he wonders what the Resistance is planning. It sounds like they’re going after Savim as well. 

He drinks the Kaf, wincing at the slightly metallic taste of instant, not hidden by the too much sugar he always adds in the hope each time it will hide the fact it’s not the real stuff. He wants to kill someone. It’s just frustration. For years he’s dealt with frustration by killing. It feels like the death of Swuey was weeks ago, not- he checks his chronometer- the day before. 

Hux must sense that he’s in no mood to talk because hours pass in silence. Every now and then he glances over, looks at the redhead, admires his freckles shining faintly in the artificial light. It will be another four hours at least before they reach the Pyol system. He is tired of being on this shuttle.

_He feels struck. Smacked on the head. Death. He feels death. The death of many, filtering not just through the Force itself but through a link to his mind. With that death he feels panic._

Hux wavers in his seat. “Sirs!” FN-3006’s deep voice calls from the cockpit. They get to their feet. He feels like he has double vision. The panic is clawing at his mind. 

As they stumble into the cockpit FN-2311 says “Reports are coming in of action on Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. It seems that Savim is testing a new type of incendiary device on the surface, she is indiscriminately bombing civilian populations.”

“In retaliation for the statement made by Nai’Qui Dal I imagine,” he hears Hux say, from a long way away.

_**”Ben!”**_ he hears Xatjt’s panicked voice come roaring through his mind. _**“Oh Force, what do I do? You have to let me go to her. Oh Force, Tsi’Jxe.”**_ An image comes through, a woman a few years younger than them, short, plump, very beautiful, smiling at him, except it’s not him she’s smiling at, it’s Xatjt.

“What’s going on?” he projects across the link between their minds. 

A confusing jumble of thoughts and memories come back. The woman again and again, smiling, laughing, in Xatjt’s arms, naked, hands bracketing Xatjt’s face and with it _lovelovelovelovelove_ and **fear.** _**”Please let me go to her,”**_ Xatjt begs.

“Explain,” he demands.

_**”My wife,”**_ the woman wails across the connection between them. A sense. A secret. Snoke would have done something, something very bad if he found out. Xatjt had worked so hard to make sure the man wouldn’t. Relief when Snoke died. _**”She’s on Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei!”**_ More images. He has the sense they are from Xatjt’s wife’s perspective- they must have a Force bond- in them he sees a whole world on fire, people fleeing, and what he feels is somewhere between terror and fury. _**“Oh Force, I’ll never get to her on time.”**_

“Where are you?” he asks.

_**”Somewhere, Unknown Regions,”**_ she manages, thoughts scattered. 

He glances at the starmap. They are still near the Core Worlds. Much closer than Xatjt to Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. For a moment he is back on that awful night. _At his feet lies Sen’Im Tji. In front of him stands Guei’Ar Tji, her lightsabre drawn. Her brother had confronted him, tried to stop him after he pulled his dwelling down upon Luke. She has slain her brother. She had chosen him over her family. As they look at each other he gets the sense from her of loss. She can never go home._

“I’ll go get her,” he says. “I’m closer than you are.”

Out loud, to Hux and the Stormtroopers, he says “We need to stop somewhere I can get a well armoured high-speed shuttle, preferably with a hyperdrive. Quickly. Then you should continue on to rendezvous with the fleet.”

“What’s going on?” Hux asks, concerned.

“Xatjt has a wife on Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei,” he says, eying the starmap for the best place to get the shuttle. “She is too far away to get there in time. I’m going to fetch her.” 

“Your Knight?” Hux asks. He nods, distracted. The redhead comes over, peers at the starmap. “It will be quicker if we head straight there,” the man says. “The shuttle is small, fast, we have enough fuel. Savim is only targeting the surface, not any nearby vessels. I suspect this weapon is one she intends to use against Mour on Ascension Base and Nai’Qui Dal has just given her an excuse to try it out beforehand. There are already evacuation measures underway. There is a good chance we will be able to slip in and out undetected amongst the chaos.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I want you safe.”

“There’s no time to argue,” Hux says. “By the time you acquire a shuttle and get underway it may already be too late.”

The panic he feels from Xatjt, his memories, force him to agree. “Plot a course,” he orders, feeling dread, hoping that he can keep Hux safe while he rescues Xatjt’s wife. Turning his attention back to the link with his Knight he demands “Tell me everything I need to know to find her.”

In the background he can hear Hux comm the fleet to tell them they will be late to the rendezvous.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being so understanding about me needing a break. You really have all been lovely. I have enjoyed reading your comments, and receiving your kudos a great deal.
> 
> WARNING: chapter contains violence, civillian death, the bombing of civilian populations, the destruction of urban areas.

Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei is burning. It’s a horrible sight. He is reminded, all of a sudden, of Starkiller. Of the destruction of the Hosnian system. Of his own guilt. It makes him feel sick. He feels sick anyway, he has since he first heard what was happening. The world wavers a little around him, his heart pounds in his chest. He hates himself for thinking that at least he wasn’t there to see the Hosnian system destroyed. 

The woman they are looking for, Tsi’Jxe Tji, lives in the second largest of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei’s cities, Bli’Qir. A huge, inland metropolis built straddling all six banks of the river Qir’De as it splits and then comes back together. They have been told that the woman may be going by her birth name of Tsi’Jxe Ku, and that she is an active member of the Stone Way Party, which aims to overthrow centuries of tradition and create a more equitable society. Their leader is Nai’Qui Dal, currently imprisoned for his beliefs, and the man whose words might have antagonised Savim to her current actions. 

Shuttles, transports, freighters, escape pods, vessels of every description buzz around the planet, ignored by the bombers hovering in its atmosphere releasing a near-constant stream of incendiary devices. They slip past undetected amongst all the rest and head for the city. 

The fire reflects on the river’s surface, making it seem as if the water itself is ablaze. The buildings are tall, elegantly simple, in earthy colours. In amongst the majority of creams and pale greys are dark browns, slates, blacks. Every block has a park, almost every park is on fire. People rush about, dragging their friends, their family members, their pets, their possessions. There is a state-run evacuation underway, but already rumours of corruption, of vessels being launched only half full and that half being officials and their families, are circulating. 

People down below see them. They cry out, reach for them. Some beg. Many are weeping. He squeezes his eyes shut. For a moment he wishes, oh how he wishes, they could save them all. They can’t. The ship is near full to capacity as it is. Even if they had the Finalizer, the Rectitude, the ships would get caught in battle with Savim’s fleet instead of being free to evacuate people. They are here to rescue Tsi’Jxe Tji, that may not be anywhere near enough, but it will have to do.

“That way,” Ben says, face impassive as he guides the shuttle to where Xatjt Ren is telling him her wife is. From what he understands Ben’s mind is linked to Xatjt Ren’s and her mind is linked to Tsi’Jxe Tji’s, so Xatjt Ren can convey information directly from her wife to Ben and guide him. 

They are moving further out from the centre of the city, away from the worst of the devastation. Behind them he hears a rumble, the sound of buildings collapsing. FN-2311’s hands are tight on the controls. 

Vessels take off as they pass, most of them civilian models, packed full of people. They fly low, laboured, those with interstellar capacity begin to accelerate out of the atmosphere, others are only surface vehicles. Those fly away from the city, fleeing to the countryside in the hope that it’s safer there. 

Ben guides them to an older neighbourhood. The buildings here are a little shorter, more elaborate than the simple elegance at the heart of the city. Instead of plain, monochromatic surfaces there are patterns to the outside of the buildings, geometric or foliate. Every floor has a balcony, every balcony has a garden. The windows and doors are trimmed with wood, or something designed to look like wood. In the heart of the neighbourhood there is a large park, bustling with people clinging to their worldly possessions. A large transport ship is parked to one side. People wearing grey arm-bands are guiding a flow of people onto the ship, preparing an evacuation. 

“Tsi’Jxe Tji is down there,” Ben says, pointing to the crowd. “I will retrieve her. Everyone else remain on the shuttle and be prepared to take off the moment we return.”

The man turns to leave, he finds himself reaching out, catching Ben’s arm. “Be careful,” he urges.

Ben looks at him for a moment. “I will.” 

He watches as the man heads to the shuttle hutch. FN-2311 pilots her down enough that Ben can open the hatch and jump out, using the Force to cushion his fall. He turns back, watches out of the window as the black-clad figure pushes his way amongst the crowd. A blink and he loses sight of him. He can only hope Ben returns.

They wait. 

Down below people keep packing into the transport. 

…

A sudden sense of _something._ He feels disorientated. He blinks, blinks again. Tries to shake off the feeling. Dread. Doom. 

“Incoming missiles,” FN-2311 shouts. “One’s locked onto the transport, the other onto us, Sir!”

“Evasive action!” he orders.

The shuttle lurches, the nose tips up, he loses his footing, falls backward into the main room. Up ahead, through the window of the cockpit, he sees one of the buildings loom large. The world goes white.

He wakes. Everything is too loud. Everything is too bright. The world fades once more. 

He wakes. Someone is shouting. He feels his body tugged and jerked. The world fades once more. 

He wakes. FN-2439 is hunched over him, peering into his face. “Are you awake Sir?” the man asks.

“Yes,” he groans. His side hurts. His head hurts. He starts to sit up, FN-2439 helps him. They seem to be in a room on the ground floor of a building, if what he can see through the broken window is any indication. It’s not much. Part of another building has collapsed and is blocking the view. “What happened?”

“The shuttle was hit Sir,” FN-2439 replies. “We lost her cockpit along with FN-2311 and FN-3006. We were both thrown from the wreckage. I found you unconscious and brought us here.”

“Where are we?” he asks.

“One of the apartment complexes around the park,” the man says. 

“The others?” he asks. 

FN-2439 grimaces. He can almost feel fear radiating off the man. “I don’t know. When I came around I didn’t see anyone else.” He thinks of Mitaka, of FN-2188. He can’t imagine what the man must feel right now.

“What state was the shuttle in?” 

FN-2439 shakes his head. “Not good. As I said we lost the cockpit, and her belly has been split open.”

He struggles to his feet, wincing at the pain. Lifting a hand to his head his fingers come away bloody. His scalp is split above his left ear. “We should try to find the others,” he says. “Have you tried comm-ing them?”

“Comms are down,” FN-2439 replies. “There seems to be some kind of atmospheric interference.”

“We should return to the shuttle,” he suggests after a moment’s thought. “Any other members of the crew will probably be searching nearby for survivors.”

“It’s a mess out there,” the man says. “The park and that other transport were also hit. There are bodies everywhere.”

He nods. It’s to be expected. They make their way outside, moving carefully over the wreckage. Dust and smoke hang heavy in the air, clogging his nose and lungs. He coughs, sending lances of pain up from his bruised side. He can smell blood, flesh, viscera, death. He feels something soft beneath his boot but doesn’t look down, he doesn’t need to know what he just stood on.

FN-2439 was right. There are bodies everywhere. He doesn’t let himself look too closely. He feels like screaming. It’s horrible. A waste of life, human and otherwise. He needs to deal with this now, he can fall apart later, when it’s over.

A horrible thought. _What if one of the bodies is Ben?_ It’s not. It can’t be. He can’t believe Ben is dead. The Force would not let Ben die like this, it couldn’t.

The way to the shuttle is partially blocked by a fallen building. It takes a while for them to navigate their way around. He hears crying in the distance. Sees people desperately trying to dig others out from beneath rubble. A little boy walks past, staring into the distance, his tears clearing lines in the dust on his face.

A groan. Familiar. He follows the noise. He finds FN-1996 propped up behind a large piece of concrete and steel. The man’s right arm is obviously dislocated, probably broken, twisted around unnaturally where he cradles it against his chest. “General?” the Stormtrooper says when he spots him.

“Are you hurt elsewhere?” he asks. 

“No,” the man shakes his head and then groans when it sends jolts through his arm. “My arm’s completely buggered though.”

He and FN-2439 help the other Stormtrooper to his feet. The man sways for a moment, before gathering himself. “Have you seen anyone else?” he asks the man.

“Nah,” FN-1996 replies, “but I was out for a while.” Something seems to occur to him because his helmet turns towards FN-2439. “Where’s 2188 and the Lieutenant?”

“We don’t know,” the Stormtrooper replies.

“Oh shit man,” FN-1996 says. “Gods I’m sorry. We’ll find them, I’m sure.”

FN-2439 hums, noncommittal. They continue towards the shuttle. Some of the bodies are wearing white armour. Each time they spot one they crowd round, to identify who it was. None of them are FN-2188. He feels guilt. If he’d let Ben do what he wanted instead of insisting they bring the shuttle this wouldn’t have happened. The bodies lying so very still in their Stormtrooper armour would be up and about, moving, alive. 

By the time they reach the shuttle they have discovered seven dead Stormtroopers. With FN-2439 and FN-1996 that leaves eleven unaccounted for, one of whom is FN-2188, as well as Mitaka and Ben. The merest glance at the ruined vessel tells him they have no way off planet. It lies partially embedded in a fallen building. He cannot see the front part, where the cockpit once was, but he can see a long slit along its belly, spilling out chairs, supplies and mechanical components. People, citizens of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, are milling around. Some of them are crawling over the downed shuttle, trying to see if it offers them any salvation. For a moment he is almost stunned stupid by the thought that he has no idea what to do. A deep breath. 

He moves forward, climbing over the rubble to peer inside the slit in the ship’s belly, FN-2439 comes with him, FN-1996 starts up the heap but then falls back, swearing, clutching his arm. Inside they find the bodies of another three Stormtroopers, none of them FN-2188. There are now eight unaccounted for, six, including FN-2188, from her squad, only two from the other. 

FN-2188’s squad had been seated nearest the officer’s chairs and the cockpit, the other squad had been seated at the rear of the vessel. He had fallen backwards, out of the cockpit, and would have landed roughly where the officer’s chairs where, near where FN-2439 and FN-1996 would have been seated. This, combined with the higher number of unaccounted for members of FN-2188’s squad suggests that survival rates might have been higher for those in the middle section of the ship. If that’s correct they may still find Mitaka and FN-2188 alive. 

“Frack!” he hears from behind him. “Hostiles Sir!” The sound of more swearing, uneven blaster fire. 

He and FN-2439 scurry from the ship. Outside they see FN-1996 hunkered down behind some rubble, doing his best to shoot at a squad of approaching Stormtroopers using his non-dominant hand. The Stormtroopers are wearing the usual white armour, but across their breastplates the insignia of the First Order has been painted in vivid blue. They are Savim’s, and they have spotted them. “It’s Hux!” one of the soldiers roars, all blasters now pointed at him. 

He moves before he even thinks, flinging himself down the rubble, FN-2439 hot on his heels. They scoop up FN-1996 as they pass, feet pounding on the ground as they head for the narrow alleys between the buildings that still stand. Blaster bolts slam into their surroundings, somehow missing them. 

He is not sure how long they flee for, always seeming just steps ahead of their pursuers. He leads them on instinct, winding his way between buildings, ducking under and scrambling over evidence of destruction. In the distance he can no longer hear the sound of bombs being dropped. The bombardment must have stopped for now. They make their way further and further from the shuttle, the park, their dead.

Eventually the sounds of pursuit fade. He darts into a narrow space between two abandoned, but undamaged, shops to catch his breath. His Stormtroopers follow. FN-1996 is panting heavily, hunched over, clutching his arm. “Frack,” the man hisses, wavering a little. “Think I’m going to throw up.”

He peers out between the buildings, checking for pursuers. None for now. “We need to get you to a medic,” he says, glancing back at FN-1996. He looks at FN-2439, “I should have asked earlier, are you injured?”

“No Sir,” the man replies. “No more than a few bruises.”

“Well that’s something,” he says, glancing around, trying to work out where they are, where they should go next. He hears a noise further up the narrow alley behind him. 

“General Hugs?” he knows that voice. His hand goes to his blaster, he whirls around. Poe Dameron, creeping down the space between the two buildings, and by the man’s side he spots that woman who snuck onto the Finalizer with FN-2187. 

Another noise, back at the mouth of the alley. Four of Savim’s Stormtroopers. “Bugger,” he mutters to himself.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your comments and kudos, as well as for reading.

He pushes through the panicked crowd, using the Force to ease his way. Xatjt’s mind presses close to his, transmitting what her wife sees so he can find the woman more easily. Of course Tsi’Jxe Tji couldn’t be doing anything as sensible as hiding, instead the woman is out here somewhere in the crowd, wearing the grey armband of the Stone Way Party, and directing the population onto the escape shuttle. Xatjt has relayed that the woman has promised her to go with him when he arrives, but until then she has sworn to do everything in her power to help her people. 

The terror is thick in the air here. Anger and grief underlie it. He is bombarded from all sides by images, people lost, people missing, relief at those found, terror that they will be next. An old man brushes past him, walking away from the park, face blank. A family, the old man’s son and his wife, their teenage daughter, rush after him, trying to pull him back. Inside the old man’s mind he sees an image, a husband, the bloom of youth fading through the years into old age, love suffusing the memories. The man, the husband, lying dead beneath rubble at the base of their apartment building. The old man wants to die. He wants to join his beloved. 

He imagines Hux dead, crushed. He has to get out of here. 

_**”She’s just up ahead!**_ Xatjt declares. She projects what her wife is seeing. The images and his sight almost meet up. He accelerates, pushing closer and closer to the transport shuttle.

Tsi’Jxe Tji is helping an old woman, clutching the hands of her two grandchildren, up the ramp when he arrives. The children, a boy and a girl, are crying. Their parents are dead. The old woman’s husband is dead. The whole family is dead, except for them. He waits, impatiently, for Tsi’Jxe Tji to hand the woman over to another volunteer, a young man, before he stomps over to her.

“We have to go,” he says.

She looks up at him, the top of her head coming up only to his mid-chest. “You’re Ben?” she asks.

“Yes,” he replies, grabbing her by her upper arm and dragging her away from the transport.

“Let me go,” she demands, pulling her arm free. “I’m not a child. I can walk.”

“Walk fast,” he orders. Something feels wrong. Anxiety is rising in him. He feels her regret. The fact that she wants to stay, to help, warring with the promise she made to her wife. “I have put my people’s lives at risk to come rescue you,” he snarls. 

“I know,” she says. “Guei told me. Thank you, but I must stay. I must help.”

“No!” he snaps, grabbing her again and dragging her back towards the shuttle, ignoring her as she tries to break free. “Realistically there is very little you can do to help. This has already happened. The best thing you can do is come with me so that my people can get away from this planet before Savim finds us. We cannot destroy her if she destroys us first.”

“You think I should live for vengeance?” the woman cries out, smacking at his grip on her with her other hand. “Vengeance only begets more vengeance. Blood begets more blood. It is not the path to a better future, for anyone. _Life_ is what’s worth preserving!”

“I don’t care,” he snarls. “I am only here because your wife-” he trails off.

_**DOOM.** _

He senses the missiles before he spots them, by then it’s already too late. He wraps the Force around himself and Tsi’Jxe Tji on instinct, protecting them as the world around them explodes. He senses for the shuttle, feels the missile glance its side, sending it spinning. The missile lands on the park. The shuttle slams into a building. “HUX!” he screams. He’s too far away to do anything.

The moment the world stops shaking enough for him to move he’s running towards the shuttle. Behind him he can hear Tsi’Jxe Tji following, the words “oh no, oh no, oh no,” panting out of her with her breaths. 

He’s almost there. He can see the shuttle. He reaches out with the Force for Hux. A sting. A prick at the side of his neck. He raises his hand to the hurt. A dart, sticking out of his flesh. The world goes wobbly. Darkness starts eating at the edges of his vision. _**”BEN!**_ he feels Xatjt bellow in his mind. He falls to his knees.

The stomp of boots comes closer. White boots. He looks up, wavering on the edge of consciousness. Stormtroopers with the emblem of the First Order in blue across their chests. One raises their hand to their comm. “Tell the Supreme Leader that the Marshal’s drug worked. We have seized the Pretender Kylo Ren.” 

The world goes black.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your comments and kudos. I've been so anxious these last few days, it's been awful, so I'm sorry if my replies have been a bit rushed. I also want to say that my heart goes out to all of you who have also suffered from depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. I hope we can all have a majority of good days in the future.

Savim’s Stormtroopers rush into the alley. He draws his blaster, so does FN-1996. More clatter, four more of Savim’s Stormtroopers appear at the other end of the alley, driving Dameron and the woman towards them. A roar of rage. FN-2439 launches himself at the enemy Stormtrooper closest. It descends into chaos. 

He shoots one enemy Stormtrooper, aiming at the weak point at the shoulder of the armour. The soldier falls. FN-2439 has another pinned to the wall of the alley and is hitting them, again and again, holding their head back with one hand so he can smash his fist into their throat. FN-1996 aims but fails to hit another, swearing about his arm as he does so. He feels a back brush his. Dameron. The man shoots another enemy Stormtrooper, one of those coming from the other end of the alley. 

FN-1996 tries to hit the enemy he missed, but fails again. He shoots the soldier, aiming for the same spot. The Stormtrooper falls. FN-2439 throws the now dead Stormtrooper he was beating down the alley to smash against one closing in on the Resistance woman. In the same move FN-2439 grabs another enemy, draws his dagger, and buries it to the hilt under the Stormtrooper’s helmet. 

FN-1996 grapples with one of Savim’s Stormtroopers. The enemy grabs his injured arm, twists it. The man shrieks, flailing his other arm at the soldier holding him. FN-2439 passes over his dagger, FN-1996 grabs it, buries it under the enemy Stormtrooper’s arm, puncturing their lung. The enemy releases him and lurches back. FN-1996 starts to collapse down the alley wall. He grabs the man, helps hold him up, blaster swinging to finish off his assailant. Dameron gets there first. 

The only ones left alive are himself, his Stormtroopers and the two members of the Resistance. “Frack sir,” FN-1996 pants, leaning against him. “I think I’m going to faint.” FN-2439 leans over, helps him hold the man up. The two of them point their blasters at Dameron and the woman, FN-1996 barely propped up between them. The members of the Resistance point their blasters back. He can hear the sound of racing footsteps, Stormtrooper boots, more enemies approaching.

“We need to get out of here,” he says to FN-2439. 

“Agreed Sir.”

Enemy Stormtroopers appear at the far end of the alley. “Fuck this,” FN-2439 snarls. 

“Truce?” FN-1996 manages, voice tight, the word bitten out.

“What?” he asks.

“I mean, between us and them,” the Stormtrooper nods at the two members of the Resistance. 

“Fine,” he nods, looking at Dameron. “Truce?”

The man nods, “Truce.” Almost as one all of them, Dameron and the woman included, whirl around and head out of the alleyway. They see more Stormtroopers, coming from all sides. FN-1996 hangs heavily between himself and FN-2439, weighing them down. The man is stumbling, yelping with every movement. 

“You should leave me Sir, I’m holding you back,” the Stormtrooper moans. “Just promise me you’ll tell Edrur what happened to me. Promise me you’ll look after him.”

“Stop being ridiculous,” he snaps. _Edrur?_ probably that Zabrak from Maneshfva. “We’re not leaving you, you stupid man.”

“This way,” Dameron’s voice says, the man darting between two buildings. They follow. It seems that somehow the idea of ‘truce’ has stretched a bit to include cooperation in the face of the common enemy.

Dameron leads them to a tiny door set into one of the walls. He inputs a code into a keypad and they all rush inside as the door opens. The man slams it behind them and then leads them down a corridor. He turns, leads them down a short flight of steps, down another corridor to a blank wall. An interface opens up when Dameron prods a shallow depression at ankle height with the toe of his boot, the man inputs another code. The wall swings back revealing another flight of stairs.

As they rush down downstairs he starts to wonder if he’s being led into a trap. At the same time if he’s going to end up in enemy hands he’d rather they were the hands of the Resistance than Savim. At the bottom of the stairs there is another door, once more Dameron inputs a code. The door swings open, revealing a small saferoom. They step inside. The door shuts behind them.

Over by one wall of the small, concrete space he sees stacks of supplies. Some of them look like basic medkits. Exchanging a glance with FN-2439 they carefully lower FN-1996 to sit slumped against the wall. Once the man is settled he walks over to the supplies, picking them over for anything useful, and then comes back. FN-2439 is kneeling by FN-1996’s side, helping him lift off his helmet. 

The blond looks wrecked. There’s partially dried blood smeared over half his face and staining his hair. He’s got bruising coming up over one cheek. His usually tanned skin is pale, the rims of his eyes red. 

“Pain stim first,” he says, looking through the selection on hand to choose the strongest. None of them are long term, estimated efficacy being only a couple of hours. “Then we’ll see about that arm.” 

He unwraps the stim, injecting it into FN-1996’s neck. The man sighs, relaxes. Together with FN-2439 they carefully remove the armour from FN-1996’s chest and arm, making the man sway and pale again even through the stim. He examines the appendage. “It’s definitely dislocated, broken too I think, though at least it’s not a compound fracture. We’ll have to get it back into its socket and then splint it for now.”

“Truth told Sir,” the blond says. “I am not looking forward to this.”

“Understandable,” he replies, getting into position with FN-2439 helping to hold FN-1996 in place. “I’m sorry about this.” He takes off his gloves, lays his bare hands on the man’s skin. Closing his eyes he feels along the joint like his grandmother taught him to do a very long time ago when his father had dislocated his mother’s shoulder, placing his hands where his instinct says they should go. A deep breath in, he waits to feel that sense of certainty and- _pop_ the joint slips back into place. FN-1996 yelps, sways. “There we go,” he says.

He fetches a bacta arm splint from one of the medkits, moving his hands gently along FN-1996’s limb, feeling where the bones are splintered and out of place. It’s not good. The limb is broken in more than one place, and those breaks are not clean divisions into two pieces. He eases the splint over the limb and then pumps in the bacta. FN-1996 pales again. It must be very painful. “Rest,” he urges when he’s done. FN-1996 nods, leaning back against the wall.

He stands, turns to find Dameron and the woman staring at him. “Well this is a strange moment,” Dameron says after a pause. “You know I had fifty credits on you being dead? I suppose this means your not-so-illustrious leader is still out there kicking and screaming somewhere.”

“I forgot how much I hate the sound of your voice,” he sighs. Reality is starting to filter back. He realises that he’s in a confined space with two of the enemy, one of whom he really does not like. “What are you doing here?”

“On Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei?” the man asks. “I don’t think I’m going to answer that. How about you? You all disappear for weeks, everyone starts to breathe a sigh of relief thinking you’re dead, and yet here you are disappointing us all.”

“Rescue mission,” he says simply. He doesn’t want to get pulled into Dameron’s nonsense. He has no reason to hide. The life of Tsi’Jxe Tji is hardly going to be of any interest to the Resistance.

“ _Rescue mission?_ ” the man scoffs. “You expect me to believe there’s anyone in this galaxy you care about enough to risk your neck saving?”

“Speak to the General with more respect,” FN-2439 snarls, stepping forward. He can feel the tension in the man. The fear turning to anger. He imagines the man feels helpless. They still don’t know what happened to FN-2188 and Mitaka. He reaches out, catches him.

“It’s fine,” he says, looking at the Stormtrooper and not Dameron. FN-2439’s hands clench. He’s doing his best to loom over the enemy. The man is large, not quite as solid as Ben, but still large. The only person in the room bigger is FN-1996, still slumped with pain, but watching with alert eyes. Dameron seems small in comparison. So does the woman with him, the woman with a look of intense disgust on her face. He doesn’t know her name. “There’s no reason for us to talk at all,” he says, glancing back at the Resistance pilot. “We’re waiting to hear from our people, I imagine you’re waiting to hear from your people. We can wait in silence.”

It’s a lie, but better for the Resistance to think they have backup than to see the truth. They may be all that’s left; the rest of the Stormtroopers, Mitaka, Ben, they may all be dead. 

Dameron makes a harrumph of annoyance, but doesn’t say anymore, instead retreating to the far corner of the room with the woman. He gets up again, goes over to the supplies, takes three bottles of water and three rationbars and brings them over to where FN-1996 sits. He sinks down, gestures for FN-2439 to do the same. “Eat,” he orders, handing water and a rationbar to both Stormtroopers. “Then I want to check and make sure you’re not injured,” he says the latter to FN-2439. 

After a moment the man takes off his helmet, revealing his handsome face, dark eyes, black hair gummed with sweat and a bit of blood. “You too Sir,” the man says, expression grim.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, commenting and leaving kudos. I hope you all have a lovely day/night/whatever is appropriate depending on your time zone.

He wakes in a beige room. His head hurts. Everything hurts. _Hux._ He lurches upright, looking around wildly, reaching out with the Force. It comes sluggish. Barely responsive. Everything feels muffled. _Something’s wrong._ His hand goes to the sore spot on his neck. The dart. _The Marshal’s drug?_

_Where is he?_ A cell. It looks like a cell. The walls are featureless, beige. He’s lying on a hard cot, also beige. The floor, once again, is beige. There’s a door in the wall at the foot of the cot. It too is beige. He is still dressed, but his lightsabre is gone and his pockets are empty. Not that they had much in them, a couple of credit chips and a rationbar wrapper from what he remembers. 

He swings his legs off the cot, wincing when the action makes the world swirl around him. _Hux. Hux is dead._ **Hux is not dead. He would feel it if Hux died.** He reaches out over the last active mental link he had, to Xatjt, and feels- almost nothing. A faint sound. Almost like her voice, muffled through layers and layers of cotton wool. His connection to the Force has been damaged. _He wouldn’t feel it if Hux died._ He shakes off the thought. He doesn’t know if his connection to the Force will come back. _It has to come back._

Getting to his feet he stumbles to the door. It is perfectly blank. There is no handle, no anything on this side. He pushes at it. It doesn’t move. He tries once more to reach for the Force, to use it to open the door. The power slips through his grasp. He can’t. He’s helpless. **_Panic_** surges through him. 

The Marshal’s _drug_ he reminds himself. Drugs wear off. There are ways of making drugs wear off faster with the Force, but he’s cut off from it right now, and even if he wasn’t he doesn’t know any of the techniques. He’s reminded of that drugged Twilek, when he killed Werinn. There are so many holes in his knowledge of the Force. Things he didn’t learn from Luke before he left, things Snoke never bothered to teach him. He wonders if the old man ever really intended him as a successor, or if he was nothing more than a tool. 

_Hux._ He can’t sit around feeling sorry for himself. He needs to escape. He’ll have to try and work this out for himself. 

He backs away from the door and sinks down on the edge of the cot. He closes his eyes. He breathes. In and out, in and out. _Panic _still claws at him. He forces the sensation away. He forces everything away. For a moment it feels like Luke is with him, his uncle’s hands holding his forearms as they sit facing each other, reaching out through their bond to help him centre himself.__

 _ _Instead of reaching _out_ he reaches _ in._ It’s difficult. His head aches. It takes a long time for him to be able to keep his concentration without thoughts of _Hux_ interfering. Eventually the outside world starts to fade. 

He focuses on himself, his body, trying to sense what is as it should be and what’s _wrong_. There’s a sense, something almost glowing, or at least that’s how his mind interprets it. Glowing with sickly blue light. Running through his blood. Flowing through his body, his mind. As he concentrates on the glow he feels heavy, dull, as if his senses themselves are going numb.

He reaches out, pushes his consciousness against the glow, trying to snuff it out. It resists. He tries harder. It resists. He backs away a bit. He stops, wells up his strength, waits, waits, the perfect moment. He feels it. He strikes, snuffing some of the blue glow. It fades. It’s still there but weaker. He can feel it. He can feel the Force. 

Opening his eyes he reaches deep, draws on the Force, ignoring the burn as it fights the remnants of the drug in his system. He _slams_ the power into the door, blowing it out into the space beyond. 

Getting to his feet he stalks out of the cell, into the corridor. He looks to his left, sees no one, looks to the right. Tsi’Jxe Tji and Mitaka stand there with blasters drawn, blinking at him, Stormtroopers with the blue logo of Savim’s First Order collapsed at their feet. “We were coming to rescue you Sir,” the officer says.

“Where’s Hux?” he snarls.

A moment’s hesitation. “I don’t know,” the man says. The knowledge that the man doesn’t know where FN-2188 and FN-2439 are either sits so loudly in his thoughts that the man might as well be projecting.

“What happened?” he asks, marching down the corridor in the direction his weak sense of the Force tells him his lightsabre lies.

Mitaka and the woman scurry to catch up, the officer babbling as he does. “The shuttle was hit-“ a pause, the man frowns, “-or clipped, I’m not sure, by a missile, Sir. It crashed. I was thrown from the wreckage. I awoke and saw you heading towards us, Tsi’Jxe following you. Before you reached us a group of enemy Stormtroopers shot you with something. You collapsed. They began dragging you off. I had to make a choice. I followed them.” He reads how hard that was in the man’s mind. To leave, not knowing if those he cares about were still alive, to follow and hope to rescue his leader. The man is still not sure he did the right thing. “Tsi’Jxe joined me when she realised I was your comrade. They brought you here, to the River of Tears. It’s a prison Sir, where the government keeps Nai’Qui Dal and other dissenters.”

“You broke in?” he asks, he feels lifeforms in the cells lining the corridor, prisoners he imagines. More up ahead. Guards this time, he thinks.

“I’m an active member of the Stone Way Party,” Tsi’Jxe Tji answers for the officer. “I know the people involved in smuggling information in and out of this place. We managed to find Bal’Re Nam before he got on his family’s shuttle. He told us the way in and the way out. I am sorry for before. I hope your comrades are ok.”

“They’d better be,” he snaps. _Hux had better be._ He can’t kill Xatjt’s wife if the man isn’t, but he’s not sure if he’ll be able to stand the sight of her. 

The guards appear, running towards them. More of Savim’s Stormtroopers. He launches himself forward, weaving between their blaster shots, and grabs one by the throat. He slams the man against the wall, confiscates his blaster and shoots up under his helmet. He whirls. Mitaka has felled another one. Tsi’Jxe Tji shoots, hits another’s breastplate, adjusts her aim and hits the soldier in the weak spot at the shoulder. He brings his blaster up and shoots the final Stormtrooper.

“We should get out of here,” Mitaka says. “We need to get back to the shuttle.” Another thought across the man’s mind. _We need to get a shuttle to get back to._

“I need my lightsabre first,” he snarls. Every moment makes the drug fade, makes his sense of the Force stronger. His lightsabre burns in his awareness, just up ahead and to the left.

He leads the way, using the Force to slam open the door to the security room where his lightsabre lies. There are more enemy Stormtroopers and a Captain in shiny armour, not Phasma’s silver chrome, but blue like the colour Savim has chosen for her logo. “Alert the Supreme Leader,” the Captain bellows in a posh, Core World voice. “The Pretender has gotten loose.” He reaches through the Force, _pulls_ his lightsabre into his hand. He kills. He cuts them all down.

When he’s done he stands surrounded by the dead. He kicks the Captain’s corpse roughly. _Pretender?_ The thought infuriates him. 

“Lets go,” he says to Mitaka and Tsi’Jxe Tji, lurking in the corridor. 

“One moment,” the woman says, entering the room. “I would like to free the prisoners first.”

“Do what you want,” he snarls, “But I’m leaving.”

The woman darts into the room as he walks out, rushing over to the control panel. He hears her typing, inputting codes. A _shick_ of sound. The noise of cell doors opening. He keeps walking.

Mitaka hesitates for a moment, looking between them, before the officer rushes to his side. A moment more and Tsi’Jxe Tji joins them. “It’s done,” she says. He doesn’t care. All he can think about is _Hux._

Up ahead more enemy Stormtroopers appear. He readjusts his grip on his lightsabre.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just posting quickly before I go out. Thanks as always for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos.

Waiting around in a small room with two members of the Resistance is awkward. He can almost feel their hatred of him. FN-2439 is brooding beside him, FN-1996 is staring off into the middle distance with clenched teeth. It’s almost time to give the man another pain stim. 

Across the room Dameron and the woman have finally sat down, huddled together and glaring at them. He heard her ask the man why he’d allowed them into the safehouse. Dameron didn’t seem to have an answer. 

He has a bacta patch over the gash in his scalp, FN-2439 insisted. The man also insisted he apply bacta gel to his bruised ribs, an interesting experience as the man seemed to feel it was imperative that any part of his bared body should be shielded from the sight of the enemy. To stop the man fussing he’d had to give FN-2439 his coat (somewhere along the line he has lost his greatcoat) so the man could hold it in front of him while he untucked his shirt and applied the gel. It would be almost funny if FN-1996 hadn’t helped, grabbing one side of the coat and holding it in place when it had swung in such a way that Dameron risked getting a glimpse at his pale belly. He doesn’t know what he thinks about this behaviour. 

A hiss of pain from FN-1996. He gets to his feet, walks over to the supplies. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Dameron and the woman straighten to attention, their hands going to their blasters. He ignores them. He brings the last few strong pain stims over to FN-1996 and injects one into the man’s neck. “Is that better?” he asks the man. 

FN-1996 nods. “Thanks Sir.”

“Why are you acting like that?” the woman’s voice rings out across the room.

“Like what?” he asks, putting the used stim back into its box.

“Like you care at all about them,” she says. “We all know they’re disposable.”

He puts the box down, looks up at her. “Does FN-2187 know you think like that?”

“His name is _Finn,_ ” Dameron says.

At the same time the woman says “I wasn’t talking about how we feel about him. I was talking about you. You’re a _monster._ ”

Yes. He supposes he is. 

“ _Finn,_ ” FN-2439 scoffs.

“Yes,” Dameron snaps. “ _ **Finn.**_ What’s _your_ name?”

“FN-2439,” FN-2439 replies. 

“FN-2439 isn’t a name, it’s a serial number,” Dameron insists.

“It’s a name if I think it’s a name,” the Stormtrooper says, simply. “You say FN-2439 I know you’re talking about me, I say FN-2439 I’m talking about myself, the General summons FN-2439 and it’s not like FN-1996,” he nods at the other Stormtrooper “is going to show up by mistake.”

“How can you stand it?” the woman asks. “Being nothing but a number?”

“I’m not,” FN-2439 says, shaking his head. “Would you rather we take the first two letters of our names and call ourselves all Finn? Finn-1, I suppose? Finn-2? Finn-3? Finns 4 through a few thousand? It’s the same, isn’t it?”

“If we have to, I get to be Finn-1,” FN-1996 says. “I’ve been around longer than the rest of you bastards. FN-2187 is a baby compared to me.”

“Dameron is not going to make anyone else call themselves Finn,” he says. FN-2439 is trembling a little next to him. The man wants to pick a fight. 

“It’s a bit of cheek though, isn’t it?” FN-1996 says, frowning at Dameron and the woman. “You gave him a new name like he was a pet. No wonder he follows around at your heels like a lost puppy.”

“At least it’s a real name,” Dameron insists. “FN-2187, FN-2439, FN-1996- they aren’t real names. They are nothing but numbers. They say you’re all the same, from the same production line.”

“If you wanted him to have a real name then why didn’t you try to find out his _real name_ instead of naming him the first lazy thing that came into your head?” FN-2439 snaps.

Dameron frowns. “What do you mean?” the woman asks.

“What, you thought he was born FN-2187?” FN-2439 scoffs. “Don’t be an idiot.” 

“So he has a birth name?” Dameron asks. “A family? Who were they?”

He doesn’t know. Those details are only stored in one place, the SCC. Anyway, even if he did know he wouldn’t tell Dameron. “Of course he does,” FN-1996 says. “Do we look like a bunch of bloody clones? Gods you lot are thick.” He puts a hand on the Stormtrooper’s good arm. The man looks over to him, winces. He doesn’t really want his father’s misdeeds being dragged up in front of the Resistance. “Sorry Sir,” the man says, voice quietening.

“Why are you apologising to him if he stole you from your family?!” the woman asks, her voice raised.

“What? You think he was robbing cradles barely out of his own cradle?” FN-1996 snaps. “It wasn’t him, it was Commandant Fuck-Face that-” the man seems to realise what he’s saying. He sinks down into himself. “Sorry Sir,” he says again.

“Enough,” he says. “They don’t need to know any more.” _Commandant Fuck-Face?_ He can just imagine his father’s expression if the man had ever heard that one. It would have finished him off if Snoke hadn’t gotten there first. _Snoke._ No. Worry about the problems at hand.

“I really am sorry Sir,” FN-1996 wheedles. “I didn’t mean it about your father. If you could just not recondition me, or if you do could you explain it to Edrur so he knows to get in touch-”

“ **Nobody is getting reconditioned!** ” he shouts, making the Stormtrooper flinch away from him and then cry out in pain. He feels a little guilty. He feels more than a little sick thinking about reconditioning anyone. 

“Having some issues there Hugs?” Dameron says.

“Shut up Dameron,” he snaps, and then because he already feels like a child for shouting he adds. “I hate you.”

“Aw shucks,” the man says. “I hate you too.”

There is silence for a while, but it seems the woman can’t help herself. “How do you know you have birth names?” she asks the Stormtroopers. “How do you know you weren’t just snatched from your mother’s arms the moment you were born?”

“We don’t have to answer that,” FN-2439 says after a moment.

“If you know you have birth names, families, then why do you stay with the First Order?” she asks after a moment. “Surely you must want to go home?”

“I am home,” FN-2439 answers, simply. Sorrow creeps over the man’s face for a moment. He thinks of Mitaka, FN-2188. 

“You’re not!” snaps Dameron. “How can you say that?”

“What right do you have to decide how I feel?” FN-2439 snaps. The man shifts, about to get to his feet. He grabs his arm, pulls him back down and holds him until the man relaxes a little. He squeezes the man’s arm. FN-2439 looks at him, nods. 

“It’s folks like you that act like we’re not real people, not the General,” FN-1996 says after a moment, looking at Dameron. “You act all high and mighty, you and that traitor 2187, like you’re somehow morally superior, but it’s not like you’re hesitating when it you think it’s time to kill us.”

Dameron snorts out a laugh. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” the man says, turning to the woman. “Can you believe I’m hearing this? There must be something in my ears, because if there’s not you just said-” the man shakes his head. “I can’t believe it. You just said _he_ -” Dameron points viciously at him “-acts more like you’re a real person than we do.”

“Yeah,” FN-1996 declares. “ _He_ does, and I’d put that finger away if I was you before you do something to get your head ripped off.”

“What, is the one-armed man going to tear my head off?” Dameron laughs.

“It’s not me you have to worry about,” FN-1996 says, voice laden with sarcasm. “When Lord-”

“Enough,” he says again. FN-1996 stops talking. “This isn’t achieving anything. Since we’re stuck in here we should stop trying to antagonise each other.”

“You’re not the General of me,” Dameron says, but then. “Fine. Yes. You’re right.”

Silence resumes, for a while. Then Dameron starts up again, addressing the Stormtroopers. “It’s not like you were hesitating earlier when you were killing your ex-comrades in blue.”

“Yeah, ‘cause we don’t want to get dead,” FN-1996 says. “Anyway, you’re missing the point. It’s not like we’re going around acting like we’re better people than them, not like you lot.”

That seems to shut Dameron up for a minute. He can almost see the words _’we are better people’_ struggling to escape the man’s mouth. 

The woman, who has been frowning in thought for a while, then speaks “I can’t believe you really want to stay with the First Order.”

“Believe what you like,” FN-2439 replies.

He sighs, closes his eyes as the argument begins to escalate. _Where are you Ben? Are you still alive?_


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting in a rush again; I really should have done this last night but I was too tired. Like always I just want to take a moment to thank all of you for reading, leaving kudos and comments. I know that I do this every chapter, or at least try to, but it really does mean a lot to me and I want to acknowledge that.

Another Captain in blue collapses at his feet, sliced neatly from gullet to groin. He whirls, kicks the approaching Stormtrooper away and then grabs him with the Force, dragging him face-first onto the blade of his lightsabre. Behind him he hears Mitaka and Tsi’Jxe Tji let off shots from their blasters. Ahead more enemy Stormtroopers fall. 

They have almost made their way out of the River of Tears, fought their way, in reality, as a seemingly endless stream of Stormtroopers has materialised to try and stop them. He’s starting to wonder if Savim knew they were coming to Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, but he can’t see how. The woman would have to have known about Xatjt, about Tsi’Jxe Tji, it all seems rather unlikely. 

He hears grunting, the sound of someone being beaten. Peering into one of the open cells that line this corridor he sees a group of prisoners, all dressed in plain grey tunics and trousers, laying into a fallen Stormtrooper. He ignores it. Walks on. 

Mitaka and Tsi’Jxe Tji shadow him. So far they haven’t gotten in his way, haven’t held him back. The lieutenant is a surprisingly good shot, so is the woman.

His sense of the Force is getting stronger, nowhere near as strong as it usually is, but he is at least as strong as some of his Knights had been back before they’d all gone to Snoke. He was always the most powerful, stronger even than Luke.

He feels a pause, a sense of hesitation behind him. Tsi’Jxe Tji again. The woman has troublesome tendencies. He gets a sense from Xatjt, a plea to stay with her and keep her safe. The link between them is still too fuzzy for them to be able to communicate properly. He stops, turns around.

Tsi’Jxe Tji is staring into an open cell. He approached her, looks into the cell. A man, maybe a decade older than he is, sits on the edge of a cot and stares at nothing. “Leader Dal?” Tsi’Jxe Tji asks, stepping hesitantly into the room.

The man blinks, jerks back to awareness. “Comrade Ku?” 

“Yes,” the woman says, coming over to the man. “The prison is falling. Your cell is open. You can leave.”

The man shakes his head. “I cannot leave,” he gestures behind himself. There is a window, small, well protected. The light of the flames outside trickles in, flickering against the wall. “Look what I have done.”

“It was not you,” Tsi’Jxe Tji urges. “You cannot be held responsible for Savim’s savagery.”

A long pause. “I am responsible,” the man says eventually. “It is my fault.”

The sense of guilt is heavy in the air. He walks into the cell, looking down at Nai’Qui Dal. A small man with plain, serious features. The closer he gets the stronger the sense of guilt becomes. He frowns, reaches out with his muffled sense of the Force.

_Nai’Qui Dal has been imprisoned here for almost six years now. He is tired of it. Tired of his small cell with its small window to taunt him with glimpses of the outside world. Tired of passing messages out along secret lines and hoping the rest of the Party listens. Tired of hearing gossip, of Active members turning on each other, betraying the Party to the enemy and not being able to do a thing about it. Tired and worried that his role, his destiny as saviour of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei will be forgotten while he rots in prison. When he received a secret communique from Mour, weeks ago, before the Battle of Dominion Base, it finally felt like things were going to change._

_An intense burst of communication followed. Promises of freedom, of leadership of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei when Mour vanquished his enemies and became unquestioned Supreme Leader, in exchange for support. For acknowledgement from the planet, entering a cultural Renaissance on the back of wealth being mined from the local sector. Mour had shared information with him, secrets about rival ‘Supreme Leaders. Now Nai’Qui Dal is beginning to fear the information is not so valuable and that man only did it to foster a false sense of trust between them._

_After the battle of Dominion Base, when Mour had retreated and Savim had gained ascendency, Nai’Qui Dal had become despondent. His chance at freedom seemed lost, the future of his planet seemed lost, Mour no longer seemed to have any use for him and all those promises dried up. In desperation he’d reached out to the Resistance, promising them the information Mour had given him, information that he promised would undermine the remaining factions of the First Order. The Resistance had responded. The Resistance had come to the planet._

_Nai’Qui Dal had made a miscalculation. In his fervour to still feel relevant he had put out a statement condemning Savim, including in it some of the data he had gotten from Mour about some of Savim’s past and conduct. Savim had retaliated. Nai’Qui Dal had watched through his little window as the world he loved had gone up in flames._

_Desperate to make her stop he had bribed a guard to contact the woman, and had offered her up the Resistance if she ceased her bombardment. She had agreed. Or at least he thinks she had agreed. The bombs, at least, have stopped for now._ It was the Resistance, not them, that Savim had been expecting. The Marshal’s drug, whatever it was, had probably been put into play to deal with Rey and not him. The thought angers him, though he is not quite sure why.

“Aren’t you lucky,” he says, looking down at the man, “that it’s not the Resistance that found you? So what is this information so vital it’s worth them risking their lives over? Worth selling them out to Savim?” He thinks he’s strong enough now to reach into the man’s mind and take it, but it is always easier when the person whose mind you’re reading is already thinking about what you want to know.

“What?” he hears in the background from Tsi’Jxe Tji. “Leader Dal?” He is fairly sure she won’t be indignant on the Resistance’s behalf, considering who she is married to, but she still doesn’t sound pleased. 

_Doubt. The sense that the information probably isn’t as relevant as he wants it to be,_ cross the man’s mind. The doubt does not show on Nai’Qui Dal’s face. A seasoned politician. 

“Savim should never have been granted control of the First Order,” Nai’Qui Dal states. He has a pleasant voice, deep and soothing, and the way he speaks imbues his words with certainty. “The previous Supreme Leader, Snoke, had neither faith nor favour for the woman. Her attempts to be allowed into his presence were constantly refused. There is evidence that at one point she attempted to arrange a marriage between herself and him, a plot that was rebuffed on the old Supreme Leader’s part in the strongest of terms, leading her to a period of exile at Dominion Base instead of being allowed to retain command of her small fleet.” 

Warm brown eyes flick to his face, Nai’Qui Dal continues, pinning him with his stare. “There are also questions of the respectability of the First Order’s previous leadership. I know who you are, Ben Solo, but your identity is nowhere near as troubling as reports of the degeneracy Snoke was capable of. The galaxy may quake in fear at the name of General Starkiller, but what will it think when it learns that the man was a plaything, no more than Snoke’s Catamite?” 

“That is all?” he asks.

The man’s face twists. It is. That is the information the Resistance are risking their lives for. That Rey is risking her life for. Next to nothing. Rumours and personal matters. Insults to Hux.

“Mour told you this?” he asks.

“He did,” the man replies. He speaks the truth. 

“I see.” The ignition of his lightsabre, a flick, Nai’Qui Dal slumps down in two parts. 

A yelp from Tsi’Jxe Tji, quickly stifled. He glances over to her. She is pale. Mitaka stands behind her looking past him at the remains of Nai’Qui Dal with contempt. “Come along Sir,” the officer says, leading the way out of the cell.

_Will Mour release the information about Hux to the Galaxy?_ What will they do if Mour releases the information? How will Hux respond. He thinks of the redhead, the holo-still, Hux’s distress. He reminds himself that the information is nothing, the shame is Snoke’s and not Hux’s. If it ever gets out he will make sure the galaxy realises this. 

_Hux._

_Where are you Ben? Are you still alive?_ the voice, Hux’s voice, comes from a very long way away. It must be through the remains of their link. He focusses on it, gets a lock onto it, begins to trace it back to the other man. “This way,” he says, striding down the hall. Hux is alive. _He knows where Hux is._


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've slowly managed to finish the last chapter I was working on before I decided I needed a break. I'm still not sure if I'll end up writing any more, but now there's one more added to the list to post(there's still a few left, though I haven't counted them so I can't tell you exactly how many). I hope you are all having a good time, and that everyone has the best weekend possible. Thank you all, as usual, for reading, leaving kudos and commenting.

Things have degenerated into shouting. Everyone’s voice is running together, making it hard to follow, even if he wanted to. He sits back against the wall and tries to ignore what’s going on. Dameron’s bellowing about how the Resistance are better than the First Order. FN-2439 is shouting back about how the Resistance are scum. The woman is going on about why they’d want to stay with the First Order, and how they know they have families. He’s not sure what FN-1996 is saying, but it’s not polite. Dameron takes up the woman’s cause for a moment, dragging everything back to ‘real names.’

“Poe,” FN-2187’s voice cuts through the shouting. ”Poe, are you there?”

The comms must be back online. “I’m here buddy,” Dameron says, taking out a commsdevice.

”Is Rose with you? What’s going on?”

Dameron’s gaze flicks to the woman. Rose, he now realises. “She is, but she’s not the only one,” Dameron answers.

“I don’t understand? What do you mean?”

“Xem’Indt Sa was dead when we got to the meeting place,” Dameron says, eying them. Obviously the man either doesn’t think what he’s saying can be used against the Resistance or doesn’t think they’ll have a chance to use it. “We were heading back to the shuttle when everything went to hell. Comms went down, we ran into some trouble. We were running from that trouble when we ran into General Hugs and a couple of his loyal little soldiers.”

“General Hugs?” FN-2187’s voice sounds puzzled for a moment, then strangled. “ _Hux?!_ Hux is here?”

“Hugs is here alright,” Dameron says with a snort. Eying him.

“Hux is with you?” FN-2187 squawks. ”Why is Hux with you?

“You know I’ve been asking myself that,” Dameron says. “I’m obviously too good for my own good. Is BB-8 with you?”

“No, with Rey. Oh great, all they need is Leia Organa to show up. The way things are going it’ll end in Ben having a tantrum, if the man is still alive. ”The shuttle’s been hit, she’s gone to find another one.”

“I don’t suppose she could be troubled to find a second one, for us?” he says before he can stop himself. He’s tired. He’s sick of all of this. He’s been trapped in this room for hours listening to two of his Stormtroopers bicker with two members of the Resistance, not knowing if Ben, Mitaka, FN-2188, the rest of his unaccounted for Stormtroopers are still alive. Or how they’re going to get offworld.

”Was that Hux?” FN-2187 squawks. “That was Hux. Where are you? I’m coming straight there.”

Dameron gives the coordinates, referring to it as ‘that safehouse we were told about on Nai’Bledt Avenue.’ 

“I think we should leave, Sir,” FN-2439 says the moment Dameron stops talking.

“Agreed,” he gets to his feet, scooping up the remaining pain stims as he does so. Once they’re out of here they’ll try their own comms. He doesn’t want to risk the Resistance finding out if worst has come to the worst and they’re the only ones left.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Dameron says, blaster out and pointed at him. It seems the man has concluded that taking him prisoner is the best course of action since whatever mission he came to Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei for sounds like it’s gone belly-up.

“Put it away,” he snaps. “There’s three of us, two of you.”

“I’d say it’s more like two on two,” Dameron says, gesturing at FN-1996. “Based on his earlier shooting.”

“I can still fight,” snaps FN-1996, attempting to get to his feet. The man moans, sways a little. Both he and FN-2439 bend down and help FN-1996 the rest of the way up.

“Two on two would put us even,” he tells Dameron. “Is it really worth it? You saw what was happening out there, shouldn’t you be focussing your attention on Savim?”

“The fact that Savim’s a major player now doesn’t change who you are,” the woman, Rose, says, pointing her own blaster at him. “What you’ve done. You need to be brought to justice.”

He shakes his head. “You really think there’s such a thing? In this galaxy?” A moment, that image of figures walking, fighting, dying once more flashes behind his eyes. He wraps one arm around FN-1996 to help the swaying man keep his balance and draws his own blaster, pointing it at the Resistance members. FN-2439 does the same. Even FN-1996 draws his, holding it in his non-dominant left hand. “We’re going to go now.”

As one they back towards the door, keeping their blasters trained on Dameron and Rose. The two members of the Resistance return the favour. It’s some relief that there’s no interface requiring a code to let them out of the room, just a large, heavy handle in the middle of the door. He lets FN-2439 take all of FN-1996’s weight and paces both hands on the handle, twisting it, pushing the door open.

FN-2187 stands there, at the base of the stairs, blaster pointing straight at him. “Bugger,” he hisses. 

He points his own blaster at the man. Behind him FN-2439 and FN-1996 have their blasters trained on Dameron and Rose. No one says anything. 

_He can feel something in the air. The edge of something. Something coming closer._

“Oh no you don’t sunshine,” a voice, a familiar voice, rings through the air. FN-2188, armour grimy, blaster in hand stomps down the stairs towards them. Surprised FN-2187 swings to face her, but before he can she’s there, the tip of her blaster coming to rest against his forehead. 

“Finn!” he hears Dameron shout. 

“2188,” FN-2439 breathes, just behind him.

She looks past him, at FN-2439 and FN-1996. Her eyes slip past, spot Dameron and Rose. Mitaka is still unaccounted for. 

“How did you find us?” he asks FN-2188.

“I followed this idiot,” the woman says, prodding her brother in the forehead with her blaster. FN-2187 winces. He flinches a little, inside. He doesn’t know if she knows about the connection between herself and the traitor. He doubts FN-2187 realises who’d poking him the head with a blaster. Perhaps he would, if she had her helmet off. 

_The sensation is getting closer. The buzz. The whine. Familiar. The Dark Side. The scent of power._

“Ben,” he breathes, pushing past FN-2187 and FN-2188 and heading up the stairs. 

“Ben?” he hears FN-2187 mutter. 

“Come along sunshine,” FN-2188 says behind him, “and you two Resistance idiots down there, unless you want to help me wash traitor’s brains off my armour.”

He hears a clatter of footsteps, enemy and ally, coming up the stairs behind him. He ignores it, emerges out into the corridor just as a figure in black stomps down the stairs at the other end. The figure spots him. “Hux?” the man says.

“Ben,” he sighs, relieved. 

The man breaks into a run, long legs eating up the space between them. “Are you ok?” Ben asks, coming to a stop in front of him, dark eyes roving over his face, his body. “Are you hurt?”

He shakes his head. “Not badly, a little bruised. Are you okay? What happened?”

“Dopheld?” he hears a voice, FN-2439. 

Another figure rushes down the corridor towards them, Mitaka, coming to a stop suddenly and raising his blaster.

Ben opens his mouth to answer and then stops, frowning past him. Suddenly he finds himself behind Ben, the man’s lightsabre drawn. “We’ll discuss it later,” Ben says, moving to shield him with his body. 

He turns, finds Mitaka and Ben both pointing their weapons at FN-2187, Dameron, and the Rose woman. It seems the Resistance is now outnumbered two to one, surrounded by enemies with weapons drawn. The three draw themselves up, an indignant little huddle at the top of the stairs. 

“Lord Solo,” the Stormtroopers acknowledge, saluting. He sees Dameron mouth the words, confusion on his face, on the face of FN-2187.

_Something new. Different. A light, a tingle, a pleasant fizz across his senses. Coming closer._

He turns his head back down the corridor, hears a series of beeps, spots a short woman dressed like the local people of the planet darting out of the way as the scavenger girl leaps down the stairs, that little droid following just after. “Ben?” the scavenger girl says. 

Ben whirls around. “Rey,” he hears the man say. He feels something, something, something, something-

_His head feel like it’s exploding. Pressure building up. Pressure behind his eyes. He gasps. He can’t breathe. He can’t. Something, something, something, something, something, something, something- it’s just out of grasp, or maybe it’s too close. He can’t bring it into focus. He can’t make it comprehensible. Something, something, something, something, something. Something is trying to tell him something. He knows something. The knowledge won’t, it won’t, it won’t-_

He feels cloth against his face, between his fingers. He’s clinging to the back of Ben’s robe. The man has backed up, almost pinning him between the wall and Ben’s body, so the man can keep an eye on both sets of enemie while keeping him out of any possible line of fire. Ben’s lightsabre hums in the air, casting eerie red shadows. “Hux? Hux?” Ben is whispering. “What’s happening?”

“I’m alright,” he mumbles, forcing his fingers to unclench. “I’m alright. A headache. I think.”

“Let them go!” Rey demands, pointing a blaster at Ben.

“What are you going to do?” the man asks. “You don’t even have a lightsabre.” 

His head hurts. “Do we have to do this?” he mumbles. Reality feels as if it’s rippling around him. 

“Should we shoot them Sir?” FN-2439 asks, from nearby. He opens his eyes, only just realising he’d clenched them shut. The Stormtroopers and Mitaka are standing surrounding Dameron, Rose and FN-2187, pointing their blasters at them. He can tell FN-2439 would dearly like to at least shoot Dameron. He notices Mitaka is standing between FN-2188 and FN-2439, their sides pressing close to his, FN-2188’s brother directly in their line of fire, trying to shield the Rose woman.

He finally manages to drag his thoughts together enough to suggest, “Truce.”

“What?” FN-2439 asks. 

“Ben,” he says, tugging on the back of the man’s robe. “Truce.”

Ben doesn’t respond, too busy trying to stare Rey down. “Oh for-” he hears down the end of the corridor, from the local woman. Another blaster joins the fray, this time pointed at Rey by the person he realises is probably Tsi’Jxe Tji. 

“Can everyone please stop now,” the woman says. “I have had a horrible day. At this point I would like to go to my wife.”

“Who are you?” Rey asks. “Why are you with them? Don’t you know who they are?”

“Ben,” he says again, voice a little stronger. “I think we should declare a truce for now. The longer we remain on the planet the more chance Savim will discover where we are, that you are here too.”

“She already knows I’m here,” Ben replies. “Your informant betrayed you,” the man says to Rey. “I got caught in the crossfire.”

“What did you do?” the woman hisses.

“Nothing he didn’t deserve,” Ben snaps. “Don’t worry, the intel was absolutely useless. He dragged you all the way out here for nothing more than a chance to feel important.”

“If she knows you’re here, that we’re all here,” he interjects, “then we should stop this and work on a way to escape. We need a shuttle.”

“Already on it Sir,” FN-2188 says. “I’ve set the others to recovering one from a government facility.”

“The others?” he turns to her. “How many more survived?”

“Six Sir,” she replies. “I have left FN-2091 in charge.”

Six, and her, means that there is only one more unaccounted for. Probably dead. 

Ben flinches, he tries to look at the man’s face, but the man won’t let him move so far out from his protection. “Yes Xatjt,” the man bites out between his teeth, so quiet he’s probably the only one who hears it. “I can hear you now.” A pause and then Ben says, louder “I agree. Truce, for now.”

He can almost feel the shock in the air. “Truce?” he hears muttered from more than one mouth, on both sides of the standoff. 

“Come on,” he says, trying to push out from behind Ben. The man won’t let him, instead sort of scooping him up behind one arm and beginning up the corridor towards Rey, still shielding him from all possible enemies. 

A mutter of complaint behind them and the Stormtroopers and Mitaka start following, keeping their blasters trained on Dameron, FN-2187 and Rose. 

Rey watches them approach, eyes wary. The little droid beeps threateningly the closer they get. The woman, Tsi’Jxe Tji, falls in beside Ben when he gets close enough. He gets his first proper look at her, very short, quite plump and the kind of beautiful that’s rarely seen. Xatjt’s wife. It is hard to imagine the Knight as a person beneath the mask.

Ben hesitates as they come even with Rey. The man looks at her, grimaces. “Savim has a weapon, a drug that can knock you out and temporarily block your access to the Force.”

“Why are you-?” she begins.

Ben brushes past, leading them up the stairs. Behind them he can hear Dameron, FN-2187 and Rose rush up to Rey and BB-8. There’s a lot of ‘Buddy!’s from Dameron and beeps from the droid. “Should we follow them?” the woman, Rose asks. 

“No,” Rey says, after a long moment. “We’re outnumbered. Let them go for now. I felt Nai’Qui Dal die, there’s nothing left for us here. We need to leave too.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much, you really are lovely readers. I appreciate the kudos, and especially your kind comments.

They emerge out onto the street, he keeps his lightsabre in hand and the Force extended to sense for threats. Hux is still tucked in close, the man a little wobbly on his feet. The Stormtroopers and Mitaka are clustered close, blasters all drawn. Tsi’Jxe Tji is keeping pace with him, radiating intensity. It’s the first time he’s seen Rey in person since he killed Snoke. Xatjt is poking at his consciousness now that he can feel her once more, worried about her wife. Hux just had some kind of fit. There are still people running around out here, fleeing for their lives. He is so close to _panicking._

“Where is this shuttle?” he asks FN-2188.

“This way Sir,” the woman says, leading the way. They follow her. He keeps Hux close, close enough that he can protect the man if anything goes wrong. The horrible moment earlier, when he had sensed the shuttle crash, lingers in his mind. He had been too far away. Hux could have died and he would have been helpless to stop it. 

There are less people around now. He can sense less life on the planet’s surface. Many of them must be offworld by now, evacuated. The fires are dying down. The air is still full of dust and ash.

He hears the pounding of boots against the ground. Up ahead more of Savim’s Stormtroopers emerge from the rubble through a cloud of dust and ash. A glance at Hux. “Stay back,” he says, quietly, then he rushes forward. He keeps Hux in his Force sense, tracks all blaster bolts and deflects them before they can reach the redhead. The battle is over almost as quickly as it began. The enemies he doesn’t fell fall by blaster shots from the others. Once the last one is down he darts back to Hux’s side and they continue on.

Again and again as they pick their way across the city they get pulled into battle, each time they end victorious. The Force, surging around him to sense for enemies, doesn’t let anyone sneak up on them. They are lucky. It would be easy for a stray shot to sneak past, to hit one of them. _Not Hux. He wouldn’t let one hit Hux._ Somehow they all make it through unscathed. 

As they cross the city the intensity of Xatjt’s presence in his mind fades, a sense that her attention is focussed now on the bond between herself and her wife. It’s a relief. He can remember standing in the corridor, trying his best to shield Hux from enemies on all sides, with their link getting clearer and clearer and resolving into her nagging him about getting out of there and keeping Tsi’Jxe Tji safe.

The government complex they’re headed for is the _Ministry of Stellar Sector Mining Advancement_ Transportation Facility. In other words, the place where high ranking officials keep the shuttles they use to inspect resource mines in the local sector. It has high walls, automated defences. The shuttles inside are military class, requiring more training than the average civilian class shuttle to operate. Still, he is surprised that the facility has not been overrun by the panicked population, looking for any way off planet. Perhaps they are deterred by the lines of defensive lasers and small turrets that seem to watch them from the top of the building’s walls. 

A cluster of civilians watch them with blank, dead eyed faces as FN-2188 leads them to the rear of the facility. She brings them to a door, well armoured, with two small defence lasers that focus on them at their approach. FN-2188 walks brazenly up to the door, ignoring the lasers, and knocks on it. “You there Twenty-Ninety-One?” she shouts.

“Yes Sir!” FN-2091’s voice calls out from the other side. “I see you Sir. Lieutenant. General. Supreme Leader. Good to have you all back.”

A mechanical clank inside the door, it swings open. On the other side a short Stormtrooper stands waiting, a heavy blaster rifle slung across her shoulders. They enter the building, closing the door behind them.

“This way,” FN-2091 says, leading them further inside. “We’ve got her ready. Lovely shuttle Sirs, a proper long-hauler with a hyperspace drive and everything.”

The inside of the facility is the same beige as the River of Tears, obviously the institutional colour of choice here of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. FN-2091 leads them down a series of long, narrow corridors, past supply rooms, small offices, a break room. There’s no one here, not even any droids, no one aside from the Stormtroopers he senses up ahead. He keeps pace with Hux, glad to be back by the man’s side, but worried about whatever that was earlier. For a moment Hux had been non-responsive, the man’s fingers clenching and unclenching in the fabric of his robes. 

“The staff had already scarpered when we got here Sir,” FN-2091 is saying to FN-2188. “They’d taken most of the lighter shuttles, left the place locked up. I suppose they went off to rescue their families. Not a lot of social conscience though. You could evacuate a whole neighbourhood block with what’s left.” A shrug, “Maybe none of them were real pilots. I know I wouldn’t fancy trying to fly a heavy-weight long-hauler on no training.”

“They were selfish,” a snort of disgust from Tsi’Jxe Tji. “Even if they could not fly the heavy weight shuttles they should have left the facility open so that those that can could take them to help others. The people of this planet so often think only of themselves and their betters.”

“Oh hello,” FN-2091 says. “And who are you?” He feels her interest in Tsi’Jxe Tji through the Force, her observation that she is talking to a good-looking woman.

“Tsi’Jxe,” the woman replies. “Married into the family of Tji.”

“I never saw much point in marriage,” FN-2091 reflects, already forcing her interest away from the woman. He can sense that Tsi’Jxe Tji being married isn’t anywhere near as much of a deterrent as the suspicion that the woman is married to one of the Knights of Ren. An impression of figures in black, exaggeratedly huge, faceless, almost ghoulish, crosses the surface of FN-2091’s mind, along with a sense of dread. 

They make their way through a series of officious looking doors until they step forward into the shuttle bay. As FN-2091 said most of the light shuttles are gone, leaving various docks empty, but there are still four or five larger shuttles, one so large it takes up almost a third of the space. It is huge, old, ugly, anything but inconspicuous, and not the shuttle that FN-2091 leads them to, the shuttle from which he can sense the lifesigns of the other Stormtroopers. 

The shuttle in question is a hybrid style, medium weight in size but with the features of a heavy-weight long haul shuttle. It’s about a decade old, he’d guess, kept in good repair, but probably rarely used. Most trips undertaken by the officials were probably either short-range, when a smaller, fancier, more comfortable craft was probably the vessel of choice, or long range when a larger shuttle capable of taking more people and cargo would have been preferred. Perhaps the shuttle was purchased for one or two specific journeys and simply kept around after. The thought crosses his mind that if his father was here, if Han Solo was choosing a shuttle from the ones at hand, this is the one he would pick. 

As they approach a Stormtrooper, FN-2404 he senses, sticks his head out of the hatch and watches them. The man has lost his helmet. One half of his face, from temple to jawbone, is covered with a large bacta patch. After a moment he is joined by another Stormtrooper, who limps part way down the ramp towards them.

“We ready to launch?” FN-2091 asks.

The other Stormtrooper, FN-2515 nods, salutes. “2316 isn’t doing so well,” he hears her say to FN-2188 as they get closer. There’s fear in her voice, the image of a man with light brown skin smiling one moment, and then that same man, bleeding out onto the ground of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. _Terror beats inside the woman as strong as her own heart._

They pile onto the shuttle. “Find a seat out of the way and stay there,” he orders Tsi’Jxe Tji, heading towards the cockpit with Hux. As they move he sees FN-2188 and FN-2439 pull Mitaka into their arms out of the corner of his eye. 

“Will they be able to track this vessel?” Hux asks FN-2091 as they enter the cockpit. 

“I had Eighteen-Ninety-Nine here-” she says, nodding at the Stormtrooper in the co-pilot’s chair as she slides into the pilot’s seat “-I mean, FN-1899, disable the signaller. As long as they don’t lock onto us with hyperspace tracking we should be good.”

The man nods, gesturing to a part of the console where something has been rather viciously pried loose. There is a sense of shock, loss, grief, disbelief about the man. The merest brush of his mind has the thought _I’m the only one left_ slamming into his mind. The rest of the man’s squad are dead. He is the only survivor. 

“I am not sure how many of Savim’s ships have the capacity,” Hux says. “The technology wasn’t installed across the entire fleet. Even if she has ships capable of hyperspace tracking as long as she does not become aware that we have taken this vessel we should be safe from it. It is time we left. Take her up.”

“Yes Sir,” FN-2091 says, starting the vessel, then inputting a code on the console so the shuttle bay doors open.

“Leave them open when we’re gone,” Hux orders. He glances at the man. The redhead shrugs “If people take the other shuttles it will help conceal our escape route.” He thinks of the dead eyed civilians lurking around outside. Hux has a point.

As the shuttle accelerates, takes off, heads for atmosphere he senses, far down below, Rey climbing into another shuttle and taking off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A mildly amusing aside that I wrote, and thought I might as well include:
> 
> _Somewhere in the Galaxy, later-_
> 
> Poe Dameron paces back and forth across the transport ship’s small main room. “I don’t know what I should do. Do you think this is a situation for flowers? For a card? Do they even make card for this?”
> 
> Finn frowns at him. “What are you talking about?”
> 
> Dameron sighs, sinks into the chair across from Finn’s. “I’m trying to work out the best way to give the General my condolences for her new son-in-law.”
> 
> “New son-in…?” Finn begins, then ends in a squawk. “ _You mean Hux?!_ ”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3 wasn't working properly earlier so I couldn't post this, or respond to your comments, when I intended to. Oh well. As always thank you all so much for reading, leaving kudos and reviewing. I hope the week ahead is a good one.

They escaped Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei without Savim detecting them. FN-2091 has engaged the hyperspace drive, and it will be about five hours until they rendezvous with the fleet in the Pyol System. He comm-ed the fleet, explained the delay to Captains Je and Tchalrom, informed them of the change of shuttle and ordered them to have medidroids on standby for when they arrive.

After that the first thing he did was try to find out who was injured, and how bad those injuries were. FN-2316 and FN-2082 have slipped into unconsciousness, the former from blood loss and the latter from a head-injury. FN-2404 has a deep laceration to the side of his face, taking out his left eye, and a broken jaw. FN-1996’s arm is still a mess. FN-1899 has a deep cut down one calf, roughly patched over with bacta. FN-2515 has a broken ankle, though the woman is refusing to acknowledge it while FN-2316 is in danger. That’s six out of nine surviving Stormtroopers with injuries that need medical attention. The others- FN-2188, FN-2439, and FN-2091- have cuts and bruises. It seems a miracle on reflection that any of them survived, that he survived, that Ben survived. 

There is little they can do to help any of the more seriously injured for now. The medbay onboard has only basic supplies, and FN-2091 reported that any medidroids housed in the Facility had been taken by the staff when they took the light-weight shuttles. FN-2316 and FN-2082 may not make it back to the fleet alive. Earlier he stood over their berths and watched their fluttering lifesigns on the medbay’s simple monitoring equipment and felt despair. At this point it feels like everything has been a disaster since they set out for Swuey’s moon. 

Gaining Snoke’s assets seems like nothing in comparison to what they’ve lost. He knows he shouldn’t think like that, that it’s weak. He is still their General, the war is far from won and more will die before it’s over. He is sick of war though. Sick of death. Sick of worlds like Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei going up in flames.

After leaving the medbay he’d gone to look for Ben so they could discuss what happened on the planet. The man had been in the cockpit, staring out into hyperspace. Glaring really. Those dark eyes had met his and the man had nodded, started leading him into the back of the ship. Past the small, barely stocked medbay where FN-2316 and FN-2082 lie being watched over by FN-2515, FN-2404 and FN-1996. Past a small lounge where Mitaka and his two paramours sit on a tiny, steel framed couch, pressed as close as they can get and talking quietly. Past Tsi’Jxe Tji, sitting alone in the galley and nursing a cup of something steaming. To the officer’s berth rooms. The man opens the nearest one and walks inside, revealing a small room much like his own quarters on the Finalizer, with a small dining suite and a steel-framed couch instead of armchairs. He follows.

“What happened earlier, in the corridor?” Ben asks, approaching him and looking him over. “Are you hurt?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It was, I suppose it was a headache. A migraine perhaps, though a short lasting one. I get them sometimes.” He _used_ to get them. He hasn’t had one since Snoke died. 

“I can’t sense any serious injury through the Force,” the man mutters, talking as much to himself as anything. “Still, when we return to the Finalizer I would like you to be checked over.”

He nods. It’s a sensible suggestion. He feels very tired. He still feels off, strange, like there’s something he’s forgotten. “You said earlier that Savim knew you were on the planet?” he queries.

“Yes,” the man says. A glance back at the couch. “Do you want to sit?”

He nods. He is not sure how much longer he can stay on his feet. They take a seat, the couch is small, by necessity they press in close. Ben looks at him. “I sensed the shuttle go down. I was running over to it when I encountered some of Savim’s Stormtroopers. One of them,” a pause, the man frowns. He feels the Dark Side surge. “One of them shot me with something, a dart. I fell unconscious. When I awoke I was in the local prison, the River of Tears, and I couldn’t use the Force.”

He remembers what the man said to Rey, that he’d warned her. “Your capacity to use the Force has returned?” he asks. He can’t imagine Ben would be sitting across from him so calmly if it hasn’t.

“Yes, though it took a while to regain my full strength,” the man says. “In order to escape I had to channel the Force inwards to remove some of the drug from my system, but I believe it would have worn off in time anyway.”

“Have you encountered this dug before?” he asks. He has not heard of any such thing being in development, though it’s not his area. He can’t imagine Snoke would have authorized it, it would make the man too vulnerable.

Ben shakes his head. “No. No I haven’t. The Stormtrooper’s who shot me called it ‘the Marshal’s drug,’ have you heard of it?”

He thinks. Nothing comes to mind. “No. If this drug was developed when Snoke was alive whoever created it kept it secret. As far as ‘the Marshal,’ there are several that I can think of, but none that I know definitively are involved in medical research. I’m sorry.” He feels useless. What good is he if he knows nothing about this new threat born from within the old First Order.

“If whoever developed it was trying to keep it secret from Snoke they would have kept it secret from you,” the man says, frowning. 

“Do you think there was some plan in play to overthrow him?” he asks. “I mean, before you…”

Ben shakes his head. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have been able to sense treachery-” the man trails off. “Perhaps- no. He would not have ordered the drug’s development, not even to deal with Skywalker.”

There is a moment’s pause. “Are you alright?” he asks, eventually. “Were you injured when they captured you or during your escape?”

“No. They just locked me up. I don’t think they expected me to wake so quickly, or to be able to throw off the effects of the drug.”

“It’s good that you weren’t hurt, that you managed to throw off the drug so quickly. I don’t want to speculate on what Savim would have done to you if you hadn’t escaped.” _I was worried,_ he thinks but doesn’t say. “How did you find Lieutenant Mitaka?” He remembers the officer rushing past Ben in the corridor to join his lovers. 

The man huffs out a snort. “He and Tsi’Jxe Tji had broken into the River of Tears and were trying to rescue me when I escaped. He is surprisingly brave.”

He thinks of Mitaka choosing to try and rescue Ben, their Leader, a man he knows Mitaka is afraid of, instead of focusing on trying to find FN-2188 and FN-2439. Not everyone would make that choice, no matter what their training and duty told them to do. “He is,” he replies. “I have already put a note in his file recommending him for promotion.”

“Good,” Ben says. Another pause, then Ben asks “What happened to you while we were separated? You managed to capture those members of the Resistance.”

The thinks back to the standoff, then back to being trapped in the safehouse with Dameron. “It was more of a farce than anything,” he replies. “If FN-2188 hadn’t arrived I’m not sure we wouldn’t have been the ones that ended up captured, until you came at least. Most of the time was just spent hiding in some safehouse Dameron knew about while he, that Rose woman, FN-1996 and FN-2439 argued.”

Ben frowns. “How did you end up in Dameron’s safehouse?”

“He led us there,” he replies. “I’m not even sure _he_ knows why he did it, and I’m sure he regretted it by the end. We ended up back to back with them, fighting Savim’s troops, and it all went on from there.”

Ben thinks about this for a moment, then asks “What were they arguing about?”

“It seems the Stormtroopers don’t like the Resistance, or at least the part of the Resistance comprised of Dameron, very much.” Not that he blames them. He doesn’t like the part of the Resistance comprised of Dameron either.

“Did he do anything to you?”

“Who?” he asks. “Dameron?”

Ben nods. 

“No,” he replies. “I mean, he irritated me and pointed a blaster at me, but otherwise no.”

“Good,” the man says, with menace. For a moment he’s reminded of Gigin Swuey, slumped at Ben’s feet, the man’s head cut neatly off. He’s too tired to think about what he feels about it all. It hardly feels as if their trip to Swuey’s moon was, he checks his chronometer, the day before. Almost the day before the day before, as it is once more late evening by ship’s time. He has had very little sleep since they left the fleet.

“We should find something to eat,” he suggests. “Then I think I should check on the Stormtroopers.”

Ben nods, but neither of them get up just yet. He feels relieved. He is glad the man is ok. He also feels very, very tired. It is odd. A few weeks ago he wouldn’t have been so comfortable sitting by Ben’s side. The man was an object of fear, the potential for humiliation, injury and death. Things have changed between them, changed ever since he told the man about Snoke, he thinks. He’s still not sure why that is. 

The heat of Ben’s body is soaking into his where they sit side by side. Each blink comes slower and slower. He falls asleep before he realises it’s a possibility, body burrowing towards that warmth on instinct. 

He dreams. _That moment, that slice of time, when Ben declares “I’m a father” repeats in an endless cycle in front of him, while behind the man the Finalizer burns like Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei._


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting in a rush again. Sigh. Thank you all so much for reading, leaving comments and kudos. I hope you're having a good day.

He feels Hux slip into sleep a moment before the man slumps towards him. He shifts instinctively, lets the man come to rest with that copper haired head leaning against the muscle of his shoulder. Hux is warm, the man’s soft breaths waft against his throat. He shouldn’t do this, he should shift Hux back, or lift him, place him on the berth so he can rest comfortably. This is taking advantage-

He wants this. He wants Hux close, alive, warm, breathing. He wants the comfort of physical touch, comfort he can never ask for. Shifting again he moves the man gently into a more comfortable position, wrapping one arm around the redhead’s torso. He _can’t_ lie to himself, say it’s only because he doesn’t want to wake the man. He _can_ lie to himself, tell himself this is nothing, just a moment of benign contact without the man’s awareness. Nothing like what Snoke did. He pushes away his guilt.

_Hux could have died._ The thought haunts him. Just when he thinks he has stopped remembering the shuttle crashing in front of him the image flickers back to life behind his eyes. He had promised to protect Hux, he had failed. It was through some miracle that had nothing to do with him that the man was still alive. For a moment he imagines what he would have done if he’d discovered Hux’s death after waking up in the River of Tears. The Dark Side rises in him, the room begins to shake. Against his chest Hux lets out a little whimper. He forces the power back down.

He would have ripped the Galaxy apart in his grief. 

He is in love with Hux, real love, and he doesn’t even know how it happened. Once, in the past, when Snoke first linked his mind to Rey’s, he had wondered if his feelings towards her were romantic in nature. He now knows they’re not. The way he feels about her and the way he feels about Hux are two very different things. He still does have feelings for her though, a confusing jumble of emotions, of anger and rejection and a strange kind of fondness. He doesn’t know what it means. Perhaps his confusion is just because, until Hux, she was the first person he formed any kind of connection with since he left Luke’s burning temple and went to Snoke. 

It was strange to see her again. She looked well, healthy, strong. She felt strong too. Strong in the Force. The thought makes him feel oddly proud of her. He remembers when they first met, when she didn’t even realise she could channel the Force. She had been so very young. If she had stayed with him he could have shaped her, taught her, guided her. Side by side they would have been so strong, stronger than Snoke, stronger than Luke, as strong as the Jedi and Sith of old. 

He still cannot understand her choice to stay with the Resistance. There is nothing there for her. There are no teachers, Luke is dead and his mother never worked on her own Force gifts. There is no certainty of victory, the Resistance will fall, it has almost entirely fallen already. There may be attachment, but what kind of attachment could she feel towards a bunch of Force-nulls, his mother who never embraced her gifts, that traitor Stormtrooper, Dameron. It would have made more sense for her to stay with him, but if she had-

_Would he still have fallen for Hux?_ Would he even have noticed Hux, the way he has? Would he have learnt what he has about Hux’s past? Would he have cared? Or would Hux have remained disposable in his eyes until he learnt of the man’s communication with his mother, at which time he would have killed him? Would he have killed him before then? Would he have made the same assumptions about Hux’s relationship with Snoke that he did when he first discovered it and killed him then?

He doesn’t want to think about it anymore. Reflexively his arm tightens around Hux. The redhead makes a soft noise and burrows deeper against his chest. 

When they defeat Savim they will have to finish off the Resistance to have absolute victory. The thought makes him uneasy. He will have to be strong. He will have to kill Rey if she can’t be turned to his side, kill his mother. His past hesitations will have to be just that, _past._ He doesn’t let himself think about his father, about Luke, about Snoke telling him that killing Han Solo had only made him weaker. The latter had been a mind game. Snoke was fond of mind games.

_**”Ben?”**_ Xatjt’s voice again.

_”Yes?”_

A moment’s hesitation. _**“I would like permission to return to the fleet to pick up Tsi’Jxe when you bring her back. After what has happened I would like her with me.”**_

_”You did not tell me you were married.”_

Again, hesitation. _**“For the longest time I was afraid you would tell Snoke. He did not want us to have our own lives, to be anything but tools. When I realised that you’d slain him I felt hope for the first time in years.”**_

He realises that he has no idea what kind of life his Knights have been living. Before Snoke’s death it had been years since the man had let him very far out of his sight. _“How did you meet?”_ he asks, Guei’Ar Tji had sworn never to return to her homeworld after she killed her brother.

_**“He, Snoke, sent me to assassinate the Private Head of her family, her mother.”**_ Hesitation, the sense that Xatjt is worried about saying more. 

_“I am not Snoke,”_ he reminds her.

_**“The Ku family are very wealthy. Under her mother, Ye’Dtim, they had been bankrolling the Resistance. I’m not sure how much you know of the culture of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, but the identity of the Private Head of each family is a well concealed secret. Snoke did not know who the Ku family’s Private Head was, but he wanted them dead, so he sent me with my local knowledge to discover and assassinate her. In the process I met Tsi’Jxe. I think it was something like love at first sight, I do not know, it is the only time in my life I have ever felt such a thing.”**_

_“What happened to her mother?”_ he asks. Even if Tsi’Jxe Tji hated her mother experience suggests she would be a strange woman to marry the person who killed her.

Another hesitation. _**“She is still alive. I faked the death of both her and the Public Head of the Ku family, Tsi’Jxe’s father, Nar’Xi. They are living under assumed identities. Snoke would not have been pleased if he ever found out.”**_ a pause. _**“Are you angry about what I have done?”**_

_“No,”_ he shakes his head even if she’s not here to see it. _“As I said, I am not Snoke.”_ he seems to be saying that a lot lately. _“You may come and get her. She will not interfere with your mission?”_

_**“No my Lord,”**_ she replies. _**”Tsi’Jxe is a very good researcher. I believe she will be an asset.”**_ Another pause. _**“I had planned to tell you this earlier, but the events on my homeworld distracted me. I believe I have discovered the shuttle that the woman, Dalie, took from the planet where she left your child. There are reliable reports that it is floating derelict out in the Outer Rim near Tatooine. I have contacted Jrii, since she is closer to the region than I am, and she is going to salvage it while I return to the fleet for Tsi’Jxe.”**_

_”Thank you for informing me,”_ he says. The shuttle. His child. Tatooine? Could his child be on Tatooine? His grandfather’s homeworld?

_**“I will see you soon, my Lord,”**_ the woman says. He acknowledges her and ends their connection.

Hux shifts against him. He looks down at that copper-hair, gummed together with gel and blood and grime from Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. Life is so very precarious. He watches Hux for a long while, without noticing his own breathing begins to slow, his other arm comes up to encircle Hux, he falls asleep.

“Sirs!” he wakes to a knock on the berthroom door. It’s Mitaka. “Sirs, we have arrived back at the fleet. We are about to dock with the Finalizer.”

Hux groans, presses his face against his chest. He feels the man’s consciousness return. The redhead freezes, jerks backwards. He lets him go, yawning and stretching. Trying to make it seem as if he was as unaware of the position they’d ended up in as Hux himself. The redhead is blushing, looking to the side. 

“We will be right there,” the man calls out, glancing at him for a moment with those pale eyes, before the blush seems to get redder and Hux looks away.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting in a rush, yet again. Still I want to take the time to quickly thank you all for reading, leaving kudos, and comments.

They have been back with the fleet for several days now. The day before Xatjt Ren returned and retrieved her wife. He is somewhat glad of this, as it means he no longer risks running into her and Captain Je arguing fiercely about the future of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. 

The argument started on the first day back, when the captain and the Knight’s wife realised they were both from the same homeworld. It had begun with questions about each other’s family but had soon devolved into its final, loud and aggressive form. Captain Je was unwavering in her belief that outside forces were required to dismantle the oppressive hierarchy of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, Tsi’Jxe Tji was adamant that such change had to come from within, that it was the people of the planet itself that were responsible for bringing revolution not an equally _oppressive_ outside element. Neither one seemed to be of the belief that things should remain the way they were, but that commonality of opinion had been lost somewhere in their increasingly acrimonious debate about the best way to achieve their mutual goal. Things had only gotten worse when the planet’s President, Dae’Tjin Ni, had announced its complete surrender to Savim and begun rounding up any members of the Stone Way Party that had not already fled offworld and seizing assets. Earlier the day before, before Xatjt Ren’s arrival, the argument had gotten so vicious he had been forced to throw them both off the bridge. 

Captain Je had been very apologetic later, obviously in fear of demotion. He had cautioned her, but her leadership during the time they were away, through the situation with the Vanquisher, made him reluctant to remove her from her post. 

They had docked with the Finalizer to find Captain Je waiting, medidroids and techs with stretchers ready to receive the injured. FN-2316 and FN-2082 managed to survive the trip. FN-2316 has been released from the medbay, but FN-2082 is still recovering. She has finally regained consciousness and preliminary scans are optimistic. Of the others only FN-2404 and FN-1996 are still receiving treatment for their injuries. There is some suggestion that FN-1996 may never recover the full use of his arm due to extensive nerve damage inflicted in the accident and exacerbated by the Stormtrooper twisting it, but the man remains positive. In the next few days FN-2404 will have a bionic eye implanted, to replace the one he lost. He had passed his own medical scans with nothing to report other than bruising. 

It all could have been so much worse. He wishes it had never happened at all, that they’d never left the fleet to go after Snoke’s bequest. 

He has begun the process of transferring Snoke’s assets to Ben, a process that apparently takes longer and is more difficult for someone who is not a banker with Swuey’s personal connections. Ben has been avoiding him the times he’s tried to talk to the man about it, which he finds annoying. It seems the man is still reluctant to take the money from him. He doesn’t want to think too closely about why, or any of it. The sooner he gets rid of Snoke’s assets the better he’ll feel.

He can remember what it felt like to wake up in Ben’s arms, for the second time. The first time had been on the island. Their relationship had been very different back then. Last time it was more a matter of survival than anything else, there was his vision in the cave, the storm, the cold. It seems this time they had simply fallen asleep side by side and gravitated together. He had woken feeling comfortable, strangely safe. Ben’s warmth had soaked into him. He feels embarrassed thinking about it. 

He also feels embarrassed thinking about what happened in the corridor during their standoff with the Resistance. His odd headache, or whatever it was, the way he’d grabbed onto Ben, rested against Ben. The way Ben had shielded him from the enemy, even from Rey. That large body between him and the world, keeping him safe. It makes him feel odd. There is an edge to the embarrassment, an edge similar to the way he felt when he watched Ben spar with Saiva Ren. He does not want to examine it too closely. 

There is still so much work to do. Their fuel reserves are lower than he likes due to the situation with the Vanquisher, so they are on their way to refuel before they do anything else. The step after the refuel will be to test the droids. The last of them are being reprogrammed at the moment. They have left the Pyol system for the refuelling trip but will return for the testing, as the derelict planets there will make the perfect environment to deploy the droids without anyone around to spy on them and report back to their enemies. 

He hopes that sometime in the next few days Mour will do something to attract Savim’s attention back to him. The woman has been worryingly quiet since the bombardment of Lai Jsti Dtem Dei, even in the face of the scathing denouncement of her actions that Leia Organa released just as they were docking with the Finalizer. The situation on Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, the humanitarian crisis that is continuing to evolve, seems like a miscalculation on Savim’s part. 

The Galaxy is still reeling from the bombardment of such a wealthy, influential world. It is different that the destruction of the Hosnian sysem, that had been sudden, absolute, with Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei refugees are fleeing to all sectors. Some of the members of the Stone Way party that have fled Savim and Dae’Tjin Ni will end up joining the Resistance, and they’ll take some of the wealth of the planet with them, or at least that wealth that was kept offworld where Dae’Tjin Ni couldn’t seize it. 

Sometimes he finds himself suddenly thinking about the civilians he saw. Their faces. Their despair. Still, he cannot waste time worrying about the fate of one planet when there is so much at stake. He is afraid that they have caught Savim’s attention by being on the planet as she was bombing it. If they have it will be best to lay low until that attention wanders. Even with the droids he does not fancy facing the entirety of her forces at Arkanis.

They have the resources now to build their own fleet. To commission more Star Destroyers, Dreadnoughts, fighters, bombers, but they still don’t have people to crew them. For now it is probably best to remain small. It is easier to slip past undetected when there are only a few of them. If the mission to Arkanis falls through or fails it will be time to reconsider. 

He feels very tired still. He thinks he feels tired. Perhaps he is simply tired of what he must do. Since Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei he has found the doubts already infesting his mind have grown. He hasn’t been sleeping well. When he dreams he either dreams of a galaxy on fire, every planet and moon burning like Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, or more often he dreams of silence, darkness, of being one with the galaxy and feeling every single speck of life as it’s extinguished as a wave of death washes over it. Every morning he wakes feeling as if that death is coming. In the nights he wakes and reaches for Millicent, but death has already found her. 

Some mornings he wakes and wishes Ben was with him, that he could hide himself from reality behind the man’s large body. He can’t. It is shameful. Ben would not appreciate it. 

The worst thing is that sometimes, in the dark, when he’s woken feeling Darkness consume all Light he even wishes Snoke was still alive, by his side, in the bed. Another life. Another spark not yet extinguished that he could reach out and touch. He hates himself for it in the morning. Ben would hate him if he ever found out. 

He feels lonely. It is strange to realise this. When he was a child he was often lonely, especially after they left Arkanis, but while he was with Snoke he never experienced loneliness. Or perhaps the man he had been transformed into never experienced loneliness. In reality he has no idea what he, himself, felt. 

A knock on his door. He jerks back to reality, almost elbowing his mug of hot water and seaweed off his desk. He has been looking at reports, or at least that is what he was supposed to do before he got lost in thought.

“Yes?” he calls out, getting to his feet. 

“It’s me,” Ben replies through the door. “I want to discuss something.” He goes over and opens the door for the man. Perhaps Ben has seen sense and is here to talk about Snoke’s assets. Ben remains in the hallway. “Not here,” the man says. “Come with me.”

“Alright,” he replies, stepping out into the hall. He is waiting for the new greatcoat he commissioned to be finished so he is only in his uniform coat. He feels small without the mass of fabric swathing him. He is reminded, when he looks in his mirror, of the things his father said about his size. “Lead on.”

Ben talks them across the ship to the quarters where visiting dignitaries are supposed to stay. These have never been used on the Finalizer. The ship is only a few years old, commissioned by Snoke and handed over to him at the beginning of the Starkiller Project. The Project had been so top secret that not even members of the High Council had been permitted to visit and he’d rarely been away from it from its inception to its destruction.

The man opens the door to one of the three sets of quarters and ushers him inside. He finds himself standing in a, expensive, well sized main room. A proper, though small, lounge area, dining suite, study zone, and even a stone benched kitchenette occupy the space. The floor is glossy, black but a lighter, more nuanced black than that of Snoke’s quarters. The walls are a light grey, matte, featureless. On one wall he sees two doors, one to the berthroom, the other to the bathroom. “Why have you brought me here?” he asks, peering around the space. Other than the first time he set foot on this ship, when he’d given her an inspection from top to tail, he has not visited these quarters.

“I want you to have them,” Ben says. “I intend to take the ones next door.”

He frowns. “Why? My own quarters are perfectly serviceable.” He has no objection to the man moving into better rooms, Ben is their leader and the way he lives should reflect that, but he is not. He is no more than he ever was. 

“These rooms are not being used, are they?” the man says, the way he phrases it making it a statement more than a question. “I do not think they will be used any time soon. I cannot see us inviting our enemies to come sleep on our ship. As it is they’re going to waste. Wouldn’t you prefer to have somewhere proper to sit while we eat together? And this way if you don’t like the food the kitchens prepare you can have your own droid to cook for you.”

“No, they’re not being used,” he begins, looking around in closer detail, “But I don’t need them.”

“You are my second in command,” Ben says. “You are the second most important person in our faction. Whether or not you need them is irrelevant, you have the right to use them, it reflects your station.”

“I-” he really can’t formulate an adequate rejection of the idea. He doesn’t even know why he wants to reject the idea. He feels like he should though, that he should insist that he’s nothing, unimportant, doesn’t need this. In truth he has no great affection for his rooms, many of the experiences he has had in them have not been positive. He is used to living in cramped quarters, making do with the small space whoever was in charge allotted him. Not even Snoke thought he needed rooms that reflected his rank. “Yes. Ok.” He says after a moment, feeling guilty at the idea of having all this space to himself. 

Ben looks surprised. “Good!” the man says. “I will summon some droids to help us move our things.” 

“Before you do,” he interjects, “I would like to discuss the transfer of Snoke’s assets.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had some free time and some inspiration yesterday and got some more written, that chapter's still up ahead though. I'm kind of hoping to get this story, not the whole fic, but this section of it finished. I've only got a couple chapters to go now. There should be, or at least I have plans for, at least one more story in the series, but I'm not sure that will be written or finished if it is. Thank you all, as usual, for reading, leaving comments and kudos. You really are all wonderful, kind, understanding people. I hope you all have a lovely day/night.

He ended up agreeing to sign and geneprint the documents when Hux has prepared them all. The man was determined, the right words, if they even exist, had not come to mind. He doesn’t want another argument. He doesn’t want to risk hurting Hux again. 

In the days since Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei he has come to the conclusion he should find a lawyer and draft his own will, one that leaves everything to Hux. Exactly as Snoke had done. He can only hope his reasons are a bit more benevolent than the old Supreme Leader’s. If he dies Hux will be incredibly vulnerable once Snoke’s assets pass to him. The man will have no funds, no Force, and only the loyalty of the crew to defend him. Loyalty which can be bought. If he hadn’t woken in that cell of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, cut off from the Force and not knowing if Hux was safe, perhaps he wouldn’t be thinking like this. Considering his own mortality like this. He doesn’t know. What he does know is that he intends to do something the same as something Snoke did to Hux, which he swore never to do. He can only hope that Hux will be able to forgive him, or at least forgive his memory, if worst comes to the worst.

They ate dinner together earlier, in his new rooms, at his dining table big enough for six. Hux had fish again, a salad with no dressing, and boiled roots. He had a roasted shoulder of pork, from one of the many porcine species in the Galaxy though he’s not entirely sure which one, with a spicy fruit sauce, steamed vegetables in butter, and the same boiled roots as Hux. He’d run out of wine. He’s put an order in for some to be delivered while they wait for the refuel. 

Now he is contemplating going to bed, except he doesn’t really want to. He has felt uneasy since they left Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. Perhaps he felt uneasy before then, but a certain kind of uneasiness has stuck with him since they left the planet. He has been having nightmares, nightmares in which the galaxy burns, nightmares in which all life in the galaxy is snuffed out. In his dreams he is horrified. In his waking moments he is conflicted. The thought of what he’ll do once he defeats Savim and his other enemies is niggling at him.

He wants to rule, or at least he thinks he still wants to rule. Once more he reminds himself that no matter what he does not want to live under anyone else’s yoke, he wants to be free, in control, and the only way he can achieve that is through dominion. Once Savim and the others fall, once the Resistance falls, he will have to conquer all parts of the galaxy that still stand in his way. He will take Savim’s fleet, her forces, and he will bring the galaxy to its knees and then, then he will stand before them and declare himself Lord of all. 

Of course he still hasn’t worked out what his official title will be. It has been so easy to slip back into being Supreme Leader of the First Order. The First Order is Savim though, it’s Snoke, it’s the destruction of the Hosnian System, the bombardment of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. Perhaps he should overcome his qualms and name himself Emperor. 

For all its faults, for all its corruption and inequality and cruelty, the galaxy was at peace while the Empire reigned. Or something like peace. In as much as the galaxy is ever at peace. 

He imagines it, Emperor Ben Solo. It makes him feel uncomfortable, as if his mother is about to pop out from behind his new, luxuriously large berth and start lecturing him. For a split second the notion of Emperor-Consort Armitage Hux, or maybe Emperor-Consort Armitage Solo, joins the idea of Emperor Ben Solo and then he finds himself blushing. Embarrassed. Feeling awkward. A little aroused. That would mean marriage. He has never thought of getting married, of being a husband. Hux wouldn’t accept it though, he has to remind himself, not after Snoke. Hux is not for him. 

When he’s not having nightmares about the galaxy being destroyed he’s having dreams about the redhead again. The good dreams are not the same as the first dreams he had, they do not have the strange, uneasy vividness, longing, whatever it was that underpinned those dreams. Something external he is still convinced, either Snoke or the Force. These dreams have been blurry, intense, occupied with his own interests. Hux’s warmth. His nipples. His freckles. His skin. His eyes. His pink mouth. His pink cock. The hair between his legs and under his arms. The bad dreams are about Hux dying in front of him while he’s just a little too far away, a little too slow, a little too weak. No two dreams are the same. No two ways Hux dies in them are the same. The one thing that is the same is those sea coloured eyes fixed on his as the light goes out of them. 

He’s been waking up with sticky sheets, either from the sweat of fear or because he’s come in his sleep. It’s embarrassing, juvenile. Part of him is terrified. It is starting to feel as if things might be slipping through his fingers. 

They are docked in Outer Rim, at a Hutt controlled fuelling station called The Beauteous Vunfa in honour of its owner’s wife. The station sees a lot of use, from factions of almost every rival organisation. Legal, criminal, First Order, Resistance, local guerrilla groups, warlords of every stripe. The station’s policy is _‘as long as you pay, and pay well, we never saw you if anyone asks.’_ There is little worry that word will get back to Savim about their visit. Anonymity has a material value on the station, that value is the surcharge of 1-2% depending on the service. Once he would have chosen somewhere cheaper to refuel, but right now, so soon after the incident with the Vanquisher and what happened on Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, he’d rather have a bit of security. 

After this they will be returning to the Pyol System to test the droids. It seems an eternity since they recovered them and brought them onboard. So much has happened. So much has changed. He feels like he has become a different man. He can still remember Hux’s distress on the river bank. Finally learning what Snoke had done.

Learning part of it at least. The situation with Gigin Swuey suggests there’s more for him to find out. He’s not sure he wants to know more, to know the full extent of what Snoke inflicted on the man he loves. He can’t ask Hux, he can’t bring it up, hurt the redhead like that.

The other thing that has been niggling at him are those books Saiva gave him from the Sith archive. He had all but forgotten them until it was time to move them into his new quarters. He is no closer to being able to decipher their various scripts, not that he can bring himself to spend much time studying them. The one with the illuminations, in particular, makes him uneasy in the wake of Hux’s revelations. 

As he was examining them earlier he decided to ask Saiva about them in the morning, in case the man can shed any more light onto what they are. On reflection maybe he’ll ask Saiva now. It will hardly help him sleep, but he doesn’t think he really wants to until the fleet has left the fuelling station and is heading back towards the Pyol System. 

He comms the man. No response. He tries again. No response. He reaches out with the Force and is met with uneasiness. “Yes, my Lord?” the Knight says.

“I want you to come here, I wish to talk to you.”

“Ah,” hesitation. He feels hesitation. He wonders why Saiva is hesitating. “I’ll be there as soon as I can my Lord.”

“Is something happening?” he asks, focussing more of his Force sense on the man. He feels a distance that should not be there. Saiva is not on the ship. “Where are you?”

“I just went for a walk to stretch my legs,” the Knights tries. “I’m on the fuelling station.”

“Come back at once!” he snaps. “You do not have permission to leave the ship.” It feels like the knight is trying to hide something from him. 

“I was just-” Saiva begins, and then an odd series of emotions he can’t quite decipher, ending in the man saying. “I’m sorry my Lord. I was lonely.”

“Lonely?” he asks, and then he thinks he understands. “Were you looking for a fuck?”

“Yes, my Lord,” the man says. “Sorry my Lord. I didn’t think you would appreciate me bothering the crew.”

There is a sense of disconnect, Saiva as he knew him back when they were kids would never have considered his attentions as bothering anyone. A couple of years older than him Jaes Denkun had been the kind of handsome that had made him feel sick, literally sick, with envy. Jaes had known it too, been very self-satisfied with his appearance. Luke had often been exasperated with the boy that Saiva had been, had lectured long and hard about the dangers of vanity and focussing too much on the material world. Jaes had nodded, said the right things, and then waved it off to go admire himself or flirt with the girls. 

“You were right,” he says. “I don’t want you bothering the crew. I also don’t want you wandering off when I need you to help keep the fleet safe.”

“I’m sorry my Lord,” Saiva repeats. His voice is worried, anxious. He wonders if it’s just because the man has gotten into trouble. “I didn’t think. I’ll come back at once.”

He tries to probe a little deeper into Saiva’s mind, to get a sense of whether the man is lying to him. All he gets is shame. Anxiety. Some attention on the bodies of the beings that pass. There is nothing there that definitively says Saiva is being dishonest. 

“Do so,” he orders. “Come to my quarters when you arrive.”

“Yes, my Lord,” the man says, the anxiety level in his voice rising.

He waits, pacing back and forth across the floor of his main room. It seems to take forever, but eventually there is a knock on the door, the sense of Saiva being on the other side. With a wave of his hand he uses the Force to let the man in. Saiva slinks forward, hunched in on himself, before sinking to his knees in front of him. “I am sorry my Lord,” the man says again. “I accept your punishment.”

Saiva is shivering. He can see the man’s muscles twitch as he forces himself to remain still. Fear hangs heavy in the air. A terrible sense of foreboding comes over him. He tries to ignore it. “Were you being honest with me?” he asks, “When you gave your reasons for leaving the ship?”

Saiva flinches. “I was my Lord.” He can’t quite get a reading on whether the man is telling the truth. The fear he feels from Saiva is muddying everything. 

“What do you think I’m going to do to you?”

“Punish me my Lord, as is your right,” the man answers.

“In what way?” he asks. The sense of foreboding is getting stronger.

There is a pause, when Saiva speaks next his voice is quiet, filled with dread. “Like Snoke did my Lord.”

Once more he finds himself being forced to say “I am not Snoke. Whatever he did to you I will not do it.” Saiva freezes. The fear gets heavier in the air. _It’s a trap_ flashes across the man’s mind. “It is not a trap!” he snaps. “I am not Snoke. Get up.”

“No my Lord,” Saiva whimpers, not moving. 

He finds himself sinking down to a squat next to the man. He reaches out, with his mind, trying to gently probe to see if Saiva’s lying to him. The man flinches, curls further in on himself. A rush of fear, remembered pain, shame, blurts into his mind. The sense of Snoke standing over him, amused. “I mean it,” he says, voice soft. “If the only reason you left the ship was because you were lonely, and you didn’t think, then I am not going to punish you, but you must promise me not to do something like that again. If you do it again then I will have to take action against you. Do you understand?” 

He can’t imagine what Snoke has done to turn Saiva, arrogant Jaes Denkun, into this shivering wreck. Since they’ve spent more time together the man has done a good job of acting something like the man he used to be, playing a role he now suspects, but in this moment he gets the impression that this version of the man is what really lies beneath. It makes him angry. Angry at Snoke.

“Yes. Yes,” Saiva whimpers. “Yes. I won’t do it again. I’ll be good. Thank you my Lord. Thank you my Lord.”

“Get up,” he says again, and then helps Saiva to his feet when the man hesitates part way to standing.

“Do you want something to drink? Some tea? Maybe some Kaf?” he says after a moment. Saiva is still shivering and he has heard that warm beverages with lots of sugar are good in such a situation. He’s not sure he believes it, but it gives him something to do.

“No my Lord, thank you my Lord,” the man says. He is a very different person to the Saiva he sparred with this morning. Much more tentative. Still shivering. That atonal humming starts up again, this time accompanied by a gentle rocking motion, back and forth, back and forth. 

After a moment, and lacking any better idea of how to handle the situation, he turns his attention to why he wanted to speak to Saiva in the first place. “I want you to tell me about the books from the Sith archive.”

“The books?” the man breathes out, startling out of whatever trance he was falling into, masked face moving as if Saiva is looking for them. “Didn’t Snoke tell you about them?”

He shakes his head. “No, he did not.”

“Oh,” Saiva says, voice getting anxious again. “I thought he told you about them. I reminded you of them because I thought he told you about them. I’ll tell you what I can. Where are they?”

“Over here,” he walks over to the desk, where all three volumes sit in a stack at the back where he’s been avoiding them.

“This one-” Saiva says, pointing to the first text, the one with the plain leather cover “-is about death. This one-” the one bound in bone “-is about the nature of the Force. And this one-” hesitation and then the Knight gestures at the one bound in red, the one with the illuminations “-is about the heart.”

“What does all of that mean?” he asks, frowning. _Death. The nature of the Force. The heart._

_Death? Does that mean ways to avoid death? Ways to avoid the death of those you love?_

“I can’t read them,” Saiva says after a moment. “He wouldn’t have sent me after them if I could, but when I was in the archive I got a sense through the Force of what they were. Visions, I suppose. I don’t know that I can really explain it. The first one-“ he points to the one with the plain leather cover “-and the third one-“ the one with the illuminations “-are what he was after. They reflect what he wanted. The second one was just a bonus, I only brought it because it was there.”

“Try to explain,” he orders.

“I _can’t_ ” the man replies. “The knowledge is up here,” a hard, almost punishing tap to the helmeted head “but I can’t tell anyone. He put a block in my mind, in case I betrayed him.”

“Let me try and take the knowledge,” he says.

Saiva hesitates. The fear intensifies. “Yes, my Lord,” the man says after a long pause.

He focusses, reaches out with the Force, his attention on the books, the knowledge of the books in Saiva’s mind. He brushes against the man’s thoughts, coming closer to where that knowledge is kept, and- it’s like a wall slams up between them. He scrabbles along it, ignoring Saiva’s winces, the twinges of pain he can feel through the Force. Nothing. He can’t get through. The wall feels like Snoke, like Snoke’s power. After so long free it feels like corruption, like something rotting. He backs off.

“I see what you mean,” he says after a moment. 

“I’m sorry my Lord,” Saiva says.

“It is not your fault,” _No. It was Snoke’s._ “Thank you for telling me what you could.”

“I,” Saiva mumbles. “It was my duty, my Lord. I am sorry, so very sorry, I could not tell you more. I really thought you already knew.”

For a moment he’s torn, wanting to ask the man for more details about his treatment by Snoke, but at the same time he doesn’t feel like he can stand knowing right now. It is hard enough living with the incomplete knowledge of what Snoke did to Hux. 

He dismisses Saiva after getting another promise from the man not to run off like that again. 

_Death?_ Maybe- his eyes go back to the books, the one bound in plain leather, maybe, just maybe, there is something in there that could keep Hux safe. Keep Hux alive. Keep him alive to make sure Hux stayed safe. He walks over, brushes his fingers against the cover- No. In the morning. When he has a clearer head. He feels too tired to try and decipher the text now. 

He senses that the fleet is preparing to leave the refuelling station. He decides to prepare for bed. As he is washing his face reality quivers around him, he senses-

_** DARKNESS.  ** _

He reaches out with the Force, sensing for where it’s coming from. First he checks for Saiva, in case the man was lying to him, plotting against him, but he feels Saiva close by, standing frozen, afraid, the Darkness further away. He reaches out for the Rectitude, and there it is. He follows it. Follows it. Narrowing down his focus until he finds- Neiro Ren. In meditation. He pokes them, sharply along their link.

Neiro startles. The Darkness vanishes. “Oh no, I ‘m so sorry my Lord. I did promise not to do that again, didn’t I?” the Knight says after a moment.

“You did,” he snaps. 

“Ooh,” Neiro sighs. “Maybe I should stop meditating while we’re on these ships. Do you think I should stop meditating for now, my Lord? I trust your judgement on this.”

“If meditating leads you to channelling that much of the Dark Side then you probably shouldn’t do it when surrounded by vulnerable Force-nulls,” he snarls along the connection. He can’t believe he’s having this conversation again. 

“You are right,” the Knight says. He feels embarrassment surge back over their link. “I feel so stupid sometimes. Of course I shouldn’t meditate until we’re somewhere it won’t interfere with anyone. You’re so smart my Lord.”

“Just-“ he sighs “-don’t do it again.”

“Oh I won’t my Lord,” the Knight reassures. “This time I really have learnt my lesson, I promise.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. I hope you all have a lovely weekend. Thank you all for reading, leaving kudos, and comments.

They were almost back to the Pyol system when they were comm-ed by staff from The Beauteous Vunfa. A couple of delivery boys had gone missing and there was some thought they may have stowed-away on one of the vessels docked in that part of the fuelling station. This had prompted a four hour search of both ships, top to tail, beginning with lifesign scanners and ending in Ben and his Knights using the Force. It had taken longer than it should have because the crew of the Rectitude, this time including Captain Tchalrom, were once more in that dazed fugue. Ben had informed him that one of the Knights had again channelled too much of the Dark Side. He hopes it doesn’t keep happening, it is hardly safe for the crew of the Rectitude to be wandering around dazed and confused while they are at war. In the end no delivery boys had been discovered. They’d informed the staff of the fuelling station and then resumed their journey.

He has just finished checking with the techs. All the droids have been reprogrammed and within the next two hours all the droids will be fully charged. By then they should have chosen a planet to test them. 

Before then he is going to do something he has put off for a very long time. He is going to see Captain Phasma. She will be leaving the medbay in the next day or so, ready to resume her duties. Because his attention is required for the droid testing he will not be able to spend much time in her company, which suits him. He is still afraid of how she will react to the person he is now. 

He is further afraid for the Stormtroopers. Phasma has always been a staunch believer in the Stormtrooper program as his father conceived it, absolute loyalty with minimal individuality. The events in the safehouse with Dameron and that Rose woman, as well as on the island and Maneshfva if he is honest, have made it clear to him exactly how far the conditioning of some of the Stormtroopers has slipped. They very much have their own personalities, values, beliefs, attachments, and individuality. They are all individuals. They are not what his father intended, what Dameron referenced, a bunch of interchangeable parts, toy soldiers with serial numbers. 

Worse yet, in the eyes of his father, and possibly Phasma, at least some of them know part of where they come from. That they have birth families, birth names, that they were taken from those families. This is not information that they should have, that anyone who does have it should ever have shared with them. He cannot even begin to imagine how they, or at least FN-2439, found out. They are conditioned not to go looking into their pasts. 

His father would have them all reconditioned. Phasma, as he knew her, would also have them all reconditioned. He, as he was, would have them reconditioned. He has memories of sending Stormtroopers for reconditioning. He can’t do it. He can’t bear the thought of it. Not the person he is now, the person free of Snoke. She’ll suggest it, that’s the thing, or if not suggest it then order it to happen without consulting him, just as she always has done, just as she is supposed to do. 

It’s a topic he needs to discuss with Ben before he can order her not to send anyone to reconditioning, but he has no idea to raise the idea of not reconditioning the Stormtroopers anymore. It’s not safe, not really, not with the way things are. If the Stormtroopers are individuals their loyalty cannot be blindly assumed. It will rely on more than programming. As traitorous as the thought is he doesn’t know if the man Ben is can inspire such loyalty in the troops.

He hesitates a little outside the medbay doors. He has been here since their return from Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei to visit the injured Stormtroopers, but only when he knew Phasma was sleeping or off at physical therapy. He steps inside, nodding acknowledgment to FN-2404 who sits on a berth with a medidroid taking final readings of the performance of his bionic eye. The man carefully raises a hand in salute, keeping his head perfectly still as the little droid buzzes around his face. He passes the berth where FN-2082 lies, her eyes slit open, watching him pass, as FN-2091 turns from talking to her to salute him. He acknowledges the two Stormtroopers as he passes, heading for Phasma’s private room.

He knocks on the door. “Captain Phasma?”

“General?” she replies, her voice a mechanical wheeze. “Come in.”

He opens the door, steps inside. There she is, standing, watching him through her helmet. She’s chrome, like she asked. A chrome Darth Vader built on sleeker lines. He can hear the wheeze of her respirator.

“Captain,” he acknowledges.

“You have not visited,” she comments. He cannot read any emotion through her voice modulator. “I suppose you have been busy. I have been informed of the mutiny, of the betrayal by so many of our forces.”

“Yes,” he replies. He wants to leave. She looks like a machine built for war. He wonders how much pain she’s in. He hopes it’s not much. “We have been busy. I have prepared some documents to bring you back up to speed. They have been sent to your pad.”

“I will look them over,” she says. “Sir-” she begins.

He interrupts her, not meaning to. “How are you?”

A pause. “As well as can be expected Sir.”

“That’s-” he hesitates. “That’s good.” He does not know what to do. If he was the man he was under Snoke’s control he would know how to handle- if not this situation, then at least her. He would know how to relate to her. The man he is now is completely lost. “I’m afraid I have to go. We have acquired some decommissioned droids from the old Separatist army and are preparing to test them. Look over the documents and we can discuss your role going forward when the testing is over.”

“Of course Sir,” she replies. For a moment he thinks he can discern some emotion in her voice. Sorrow, perhaps. “We will speak then.”

He nods, leaves, feels guilty. He feels like he has betrayed her. They were close, for so many years they were close. Only it wasn’t him. The memories he has of sharing time with her are all from the perspective of the man his father and Snoke made him into. Perhaps when the droids have been tested he should try harder, sit her down and discuss- not everything that happened, but enough that he can get some sense of how she will feel about how much things have changed, how much he has changed. Just because her family was old Imperial, just because she joined up voluntarily, just because she has never been reconditioned, that does not mean they can’t find accord. Maybe his instincts are wrong. Maybe she won’t become an enemy. 

He finds Ben on the bridge. The man is glowering out into space as they approach the Pyol System. Saiva Ren is there too, lingering close, but not too close. The Knight seems uncomfortable, he’s humming like usual, but it’s louder, slightly frantic, and the man seems to be swaying back and forth where he stands. This is odd. He is used to the Knights of Ren seeming untouchable. “Are we ready to begin the testing?” Ben says as he approaches.

“Yes Sir,” he replies. “By the time we select a planet and get everything into position the droids will have fully charged.”

“Which one do you suggest?” the man says, watching as the dull, lifeless planets of the Pyol system get closer. 

Walking up to stand beside Ben he looks out onto the dead worlds. “We should perform some scans first. Once we have ensured the droids are operational, have tested their basic functioning as military units, I believe we should engage them in some war games against the Stormtroopers. As such we should choose a planet with an environment which is safe for human life.”

The man nods. He turns, gives the order for scans to Captain Je, she turns, gives the order to the Command Staff. They wait. 

Once the tests are completed the two most viable options are Pyol Sem and Pyol Nur. Pyol Sem is lifeless, once the major world in the System. Once war had broken out its entire surface had been bombed with incendiary devices, and later in the war areas had been bombarded with advanced weapons of multiple types, most notoriously the radiation weapons that all but obliterated most cities in the northern hemisphere. Said northern hemisphere is still too irradiated to be safe, but radiation levels in the southern hemisphere, which was never bombed as extensively as the northern one, have dropped enough for them to walk the surface unprotected. 

Pyol Nur, on the other hand, was the testing site for a major biological weapon that eventually wiped out most of the Pyolyun species that inhabited the System. The disease is long dead, and would not have affected them anyway, as they are not Pyolyun, but pockets of life have returned and now inhabit areas near the equator. There is an increased risk of their actions being reported to one or more of their enemies if they engage in testing on Pyol Nur. 

Snoke would have simply used the beings that inhabit the planet as targets for the droids if he was running the operation, in fact he would have done so too under the man’s control, but he would rather just leave them be. They are living desperate little lives out here in the wreckage wrought by their ancestors, whatever they have done in life they do not deserve to have the wrath of their faction brought down upon them.

“Pyol Sem,” he suggests. “As long as we remain in the southern hemisphere we should be safe from the residual radiation.”

Ben nods. He gives the order, Captain Je relays it. They head down to the planet.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have managed to finish writing this part of the longer series, and I want to know if you'd like me to post the remaining chapters now, or keep posting one a day? I am not sure if I'll ever get around to writing the next part of the series, I still feel pretty burnt out currently, but I am glad I got this part finished. I just want to say that you have probably been the kindest, most supportive group of readers I have ever had in my almost two decades of (very rarely) posting fics. Thank you all so much for reading, leaving kudos, and comments.

Pyol Sem feels like a dead world. There is neither sapient nor sentient life, and the few plants that grow are small and scrabbly. Once, long ago, the world had been lush, rife with thick red foliage in the parts that weren’t heavily urbanised. Now the wind whistles through derelict buildings decaying into rubble and between knotted, spindly branches or knotted spindly trees. Within moments of disembarking the transport a fine layer of grey dust had covered everything, leaving them all looking as muted as the world on which they stand. It is hard to imagine that things must be worse in the northern hemisphere, that here in the south the planet did not suffer the full force of the bombardment. The devastation here is almost incomprehensible, almost complete. It is rare for a world, even one as heavily bombed as this, to lose all life more advanced than microorganisms.

They have been testing the droids for three days. Starting with initialising them, putting them through their basic paces, and working up to training exercises and war games. He has barely seen Ben during this time as they have both been off supervising different battalions. Things have gone well, amazingly well. The droids are alert, obedient, capable, there has been no trouble with their reprogramming and their performance is on par with the performance of the majority of Stormtrooper squads. So far it seems that it was a good choice to salvage them. 

Each squadron of droids has been put under a Stormtrooper Droid Squad Leader, at least temporarily, until they are 100% sure the droids can be trusted to carry out their orders. This has required a little restructuring of the ranks, taking eligible Stormtroopers from their squads and promoting them to Stormtrooper Droid Squad Leader, then reassigning others to fill their unoccupied positions. He had not included FN-2188’s squad in the restructuring, even though the squad lost two members at Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. In his experience they work too well together to make it worthwhile to divide them. Instead he had allocated FN-1899, FN-2103 and temporarily, until FN-2082 is back on her feet, FN-2679 to her command, promoted her to Captain, and then given them the job of leading one group of the opposing Stormtrooper forces in the war games. 

The droids performed well against Stormtroopers in the field, both in open countryside and fighting in the grey and dreary wreckage of one of Pyol Sem’s once majestic cities, Bdae. All weapons had been set to stun, not kill, with both droids and Stormtrooper armour set to count hits. He is pleased, though he is not sure why or whether he should be pleased, to note that the squad that did best overall is FN-2188’s squad, even with FN-2404 still adjusting to his bionic eye and FN-1996 with his arm still in a smart-brace to help with fine motor control. 

They are now packing up to leave Pyol Sem. He stands by a pile of dusty rubble that was once part of a mansion’s wall and watches droids being loaded onto the transport to take back up to the fleet. “Things went well.” He looks over, sees Ben approaching. 

The only time they have spent in each other’s company in the past three days were the few moments in the evenings when they ate their rationbars sitting side by side before retiring to the transport to sleep. Too much time would have been wasted packing up the droids and returning to the fleet every night only to return to the planet and unpack them every morning. “Yes,” he nods. “They will be a valuable resource when we take Arkanis.”

“There’s still no word of movement from Savim,” Ben says. “Is that what you would expect?”

He shakes his head. “I am beginning to suspect something we don’t know might be happening.”

“I have sensed no direct threat through the Force.”

“Perhaps her attention is engaged elsewhere?” he suggests. “Possibly internally. She may have the High Council backing her but my experience with those people tells me they can be obstructive when they aren’t getting their way.” Not that they’d dared much against Snoke, but there were times it was just him standing before them trying to make them see sense. 

Ben makes a humming noise. The man looks like a carrion bird, a big black crow against the grey devastation of Pyol Sem. As strange as it is the thought sends a rush of fondness through him. He finds himself blushing, looking away.

“Should we risk Arkanis with her still nearby?” Ben asks after a long moment.

He thinks about it, shakes his head. “Only if we have no other choice. It is far too dangerous. For now I think our best option is wait, hope she goes after Mour, and if she doesn’t, hope something else takes her out of the sector. The Resistance also caught her attention at Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei.”

Another humming noise. He wonders what the man thinks of the idea of Savim going after his mother and the scavenger girl. Instead of following that line of conversation Ben says “I hate waiting.”

_“Waiting is part of the art of war,”_ he replies, only realising he’s quoting his father once the words slip from his mouth.

“War is tiresome,” the man mutters. “I look forward to it being done.”

What can he say to that? Part of him wants to tell Ben that war will never be done, that even if they are victorious in the short term, sometime later new, or old, opponents will rise and either they or their heirs will be sucked back into the same old conflict. For a minute he wavers. For a minute he almost wants to ask Ben to release him, to let him go so he can flee to the edges of the known universe. So he can get away from the horror of it all. There is nowhere to run though. War and death follow everywhere. He finds that he doesn’t want to leave Ben alone in the middle of it. 

“Are you ok?” Ben asks. He looks over, the man is leaning in close, those dark eyes intent on his face.

“I don’t know,” he answers after a moment. He sees no point in deflecting. If Ben truly is not like Snoke the man will not harm him for sharing some of what he feels. “I have had terrible dreams since Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei.”

Ben nods. “I have too. Dreams of fire and destruction. It is to be expected. I am sorry, so sorry, that I ever brought you to that place.”

“It was my suggestion,” he says, his eyes slip past Ben to look at the first load of Stormtroopers piling on to the transport. _Guilt._ “If you had gone alone perhaps you could have slipped in and out unnoticed. If anyone bears the blame it is me.”

“No,” Ben comes closer, eyes so intent on his face. “You were working with what information you had. It is Savim who bombed the planet, Savim who attacked the shuttle, Savim who is responsible for the deaths of our troops.”

A shrug. “I gave her the opportunity. It is alright, I am not looking to have my responsibility absolved. I made a bad call.”

“You didn’t,” Ben insists. “There was no guarantee the shuttle would be hit. I don’t even know if we can be sure anyone was aiming at it, or if they were aiming at the transport and we simply got caught in the crossfire. Sometimes these things happen.” Ben hesitates, “I am sorrier than you can imagine that I failed to protect you like I promised I would.”

He’s not sure what to say to that. He feels the blush back over his cheeks. It is hard to look Ben in the eye. “I survived-” he begins, but Ben interrupts.

“You got hurt. You could have been captured by the Resistance. You are having bad dreams. It is not good enough!”

“I-” he’s not sure what to say. He can feel something in the air, some subtext he cannot understand beneath the man’s words. “I don’t understand. Why does it matter so much to you?”

“ _Because_ -“ Ben begins, then breaks off. The man huffs in a breath, rubs both large hands over his face. “Because you are important to me, to our organisation,” the man says. It feels like an incomplete statement, but he can’t quite work out what’s missing. “I meant it, I still mean it, when I said that without you we would not still be here.”

“You are important too,” he says after a moment. “Please do not forget that. You say that we are only still here because of me, and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that we are only _us_ because of you.” 

“Because I killed Snoke,” Ben states.

“In part,” he replies, “but not only. You are our Leader, you are who we rally around.” Ben must become that kind of leader if he wants to end his father’s version of the Stormtrooper program. He does. He must. He cannot live on doing to others what has been done to him.

“They-” Ben gestures at the troops milling around as the transport takes off “-would just as soon rally around you. You underestimate your importance, and the esteem in which you’re held.” 

He doesn’t know what to say, what to think. It is alarming being told such a thing by a superior. These are the kind of words that usually come before an impromptu execution. He can only imagine that if it was Snoke telling him this it would be followed by enough Force Lighting to fry him to a crisp. He should be afraid. He should be terrified. He should be begging to preserve his own life, but Ben is just looking at him intently. Almost fondly. He finds that in this moment he is not at all afraid of the man. Following on that realisation a wave of self-consciousness crashes over him. He feels his face heat. His eyes slip away, to the side. Ben is very close to him right now.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting in a hurry again. Mondays can be tiring. Thank you all so much for reading, leaving kudos and comments. Still thinking about whether I'll keep posting once a day or just post the rest, but if I choose the latter it won't be today. I hope you all have a lovely day/night/week in general.

Back on the planet he almost confessed his love to Hux. He feels like an idiot. He thinks he managed to deflect it back to professionalism, to the importance Hux has to their faction, but he still felt embarrassed, still feel embarrassed thinking back. Hux had looked as embarrassed as he still feels. Except, it was not the jaw clenched, muscle tensed embarrassment of Hux dealing with Swuey. There was a softness to the way Hux looked. _Hux thinks he’s important, and not just because he killed Snoke._ It’s almost too much. It made him want to reach out, to, to, to do _something._ Probably not kiss Hux. Hux would find that upsetting. Maybe hold Hux’s hand again, twine his fingers through Hux’s thinner ones. He’d managed to stop himself.

They’d sat side by side on the final transport from Pyol Sem back to the fleet. His eyes kept darting to the redhead’s face, the redhead’s freckles, the redhead’s hand on the armrest of the seat between them. Hux was wearing his gloves. The leather would have been warm from his body heat. 

They have no yet left the Pyol System. There is no reason to so far. They will stay for a few more days then they will move on to the next nearly abandoned part of the galaxy, then the next, until Savim finally acts and they head to Arkanis. There are a few more hours before dinner, which he’s going to eat once more with Hux, this time in the man’s rooms instead of his. The redhead is off supervising things relating to the droids and talking to techs so he has some time to spare. 

After bathing, which was the first thing he did back on the Finalizer, washing all that fine, silty grey dust from his skin and his hair, he sparred with Saiva for a while. The Knight is still nervous, tentative, hasn’t bounced back from their encounter quite as quickly as he would have expected. In honesty he is a bit worried about the man. He is a bit worried about all of them now, his Knights. He remembers Xatjt telling him that Snoke wanted them to be nothing but tools. He is afraid to find out what Snoke might have done to them to turn them into said tools. He thinks back and in his mind’s eyes they were just children when they left the temple. He was just a child. 

For now, with his spare hours, he is going to have another look at the Sith texts. He has remembered Snoke’s library, a room he entered only once to remove anything of value he might be able to sell to someone who wasn’t a Sith Lord, before leaving as quickly as possible. The room had almost stunk with corruption. 

There had been texts there, texts like the ones Saiva had given him. There may be the possibility that something, some text, or maybe a datafile, housed in Snoke’s library will help him decipher the books from the Sith archive. He feels a little foolish for avoiding the place for so long, for not trying to use the ancient knowledge that Snoke must have accumulated to acquire more power for himself. He has never been much for reading though, never been much for studying the history of the Jedi, the Sith. He has always preferred to live in the moment. 

_He wants, more than anything, to be able to read the text about death._ His dreams are still full of it. Full of Hux dying, the galaxy dying. He has to keep Hux safe. He failed once before but _never again._ If there’s something in that text, or if not that one then somewhere in Snoke’s library, that can help he _has_ to find it. He knows some of the Sith of old, or at least he has heard that some of the Sith of old, found ways around death. Ways not to die. Possibly even ways to prevent those they love from dying. He has never cared before now, but now the thought niggles away at the edges of his mind no matter what else he is trying to do.

The first thing he is going to do is have another look at the texts in his room, to study their scripts in preparation to compare them to the scripts of the books in Snoke’s library. He needs to be able to recognise the writing systems they contain on sight if he encounters them again. He can only hope Snoke has other material written in their languages, material with some key to translation in a language he can read. He doesn’t even know what worlds, what cultures, produced the texts.

He begins as he did the first time, with the plain book bound in leather, the book about death if Saiva is correct. _The book he most wants to understand._ He lifts the pale, leather cover once more and peers within. The script appears as if it once had a pictographic form before time and linguistic changes wore it away to something angular, dense, heavy looking. Last time he examined this book the characters had moved beneath his touch, he is hesitant to touch the pages again in case it happens a second time. His eyes scan the pages, flicking through one after the other, from cover to cover. He understands none of it. None of it is written in any other language. Once he feels he has a reasonable impression of the style of the script, enough that he may be able to recognise it amongst Snoke’s books, he carefully shuts the tome and reaches for the one bound in bone.

This script is different, flowing, sinuous lines with little loops and bumps, tails and groups of tiny free strokes. The individual signs are hard to make out, because this seems to be a cursive style of writing, with the characters all connected. There is a smell to this book, one he didn’t notice before, over the scent of perfume coming off the red book. The scent is faintly salty, like the sea. There are also strange symbols incised in places beside the text, but he cannot begin to make out their meaning.

Closing the bone book, the book of the nature of the Force, he hesitates before finally picking up the book of the heart. His skin crawls as he opens the finely worked red cover. The same illuminations as before stare up at him, the larger images of the man with the erect cock with his various companions, and the smaller pictures surrounding the text of figures contorted into strange sexual positions. He tries to ignore the illustrations to focus on the style of the writing.

At the beginning of each page the first character is larger than the rest, picked out in gold and red and sometimes blue, and surrounded by a wreath of flowers and birds. The rest of the characters are small, picked out individually and not connected to any other. There is a roundness to the shape of most of the characters, they are simple in appearance, but not the same as any others he has seen before. The ink is very black. The pen-strokes very neat. The whole book speaks of the wealth of either whoever produced it or commissioned it, every component that has gone into seems expensive, from the rich colours, the fine leather, the large illuminations and especially to the liberal use of gold.

Once he is fairly certain he would recognise all three scripts, or if not any of the others then definitely the language of the book about death, he puts the books aside and gets to his feet. He stretches for a moment, working out the tension that has built up in his shoulders, glancing around his large and shiny quarters. The black floor, the pale walls. His grandfather’s helmet sits in its display over by the lounge area near the fatly padded leather couch. He glances at it, looks away. He is no longer sure what he feels about Darth Vader. He is sure that his idolisation of the man is one of the things that had made him seem so much a child in Snoke’s eyes. 

He leaves his quarters, heading for the remains of Snoke’s rooms. He passes Stormtroopers, techs, officers. They salute him and go about their business. There is still fear there, but some of it has died back. It is now more tempered and less extreme. There does seem to be some benefit to morale from not killing members of the crew. It is good that none of them has done anything to test his resolve on that issue yet. 

No work to strip any more of Snoke’s wealth from the man’s rooms has been done since that last trip, the trip that ended in the death of Werinn. At that point he had made enough money not to worry about selling anything more for the time being. Eventually more would have had to be looted, but now, with Hux’s insistence that he takes Snoke’s bequest from the man, it is unlikely that they will need to sell off Snoke’s belonging to bankroll themselves. He has no intention of disposing of the remains of the old Supreme Leader’s quarters, however. Who knows what the future will bring. 

He walks over a floor stripped of stone to the metal frame beneath, passing through the main room and hesitating a little at the door to the library. He lays a hand against the polished surface for a moment, before he opens the door and steps inside.

The Dark Side washes over him, heavy, corrupt, stinking of Snoke. The room is small, comfortable looking though not feeling, with a heavy, red leather lounge suite in the centre of a room with walls lined in bookshelves. Beside one of the lounge chairs he spots a book, open face down on a glossy, red wood table. He walks over, picks it up, glances though the pages.

It’s a romance novel. He frowns down at it. Reads a few more pages. Definitely a romance novel. The protagonist is a young man, innocent, being beguiled, corrupted, by a much worldlier older man. His face scrunches up. He puts the book back down.

Heading towards the bookshelf emitting the heaviest contamination of the Dark Side he picks up a book at random, flicks it open. The cover is bound in cloth, the words within Galactic Standard. He reads a few pages, ending in something about the “the hypocrisy of the idea of the Light Side as a tool for war and death as espoused by the Jedi Order” before he puts it back. It is a critique of the Jedi Order in the last days before the rise of the Empire. It doesn’t seem all that relevant to his current interests.

He picks up another book, bound in red leather, opens it. A whole new script faces him. The words are all uniform, even, obviously printed and not hand written. As he touches the pages cold creeps up his fingers, images start flashing behind his eyes. He sees ways of changing what people think, ways of making them behave against their own nature, ways of bringing about conflict and war in a time of peace. Disconcerted he puts the book back. A book of the mind, he would say.

He lifts the next book, a slim volume bound with blue cardboard. He flicks it open and almost drops it. A spark. A shock lances up his arm, heat tingling his fingers. He freezes, the book flopped open in his hand. Nothing more happens. Looking down at the page he sees faded handwriting in blue ink. It takes him a moment to be able to decipher the writing, but it’s Galactic Standard, well, almost Galactic Standard. It seems to be some local dialect of it, as not all the words make immediate sense, and some characters of Galactic Standard don’t look to be used at all, while one or two new ones that he can neither read nor work out how to pronounce appear in some words. 

The dialect is close enough to the language he’s used to that he begins to get a sense of what the book is about. It seems to be a collection of thoughts, information gleaned from other sources- though not always with a reference to what sources they were, and experiments about using the Dark Side to increase aggression and guide the behaviour of others without having to exert direct control for long periods of time. As his eyes rove over the words he begins to get a sense of the author, of the way the author spoke, thought. Snoke. He thinks, perhaps, no. No it is. He flicks back to the first page, looks for a name, doesn’t find one. It doesn’t matter. He’s sure this little book was handwritten by Snoke himself. 

The book is old, the cover scuffed and a little foxed at the edges, the ink faded, the dialect different, some of the word choices more juvenile than the Snoke he knew. He gets the impression that Snoke must have written it when he was a much younger man. For a moment he tries to imagine Snoke as a baby, a child, a youth, a man in his prime. He can’t. All he can see is Snoke old and injured, the monster in maturity.

He puts the book back and reaches for the next, and then the next, and then the next. He loses track of time. As some point he hears his comm, answers it, tells Hux that he won’t make dinner, that they’ll talk the next day. He keeps reading. Taking books down, leaving them in piles around the lounge suite, where he sits and flicks through volumes and unrolls scrolls. 

So far nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing to translate any of the three texts. Nothing about how to cheat death. A lot about how to control other people. Some about the old Jedi order. The occasional romance novel or book of lurid poetry. He keeps reading, reading, reading, reading.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Chapter contains issues of rape.
> 
> Thank you all, as always, for reading, leaving kudos and comments. I'm still posting one chapter daily so far, but that's not set in stone. I hope you all have a great week.

He has been sitting at his desk for too long. He should probably just go to bed. Ben didn’t come to dinner. He has no idea where the man is, or what he’s doing. He seemed distracted during the comm. It was strange to eat by himself. Ben had already ordered from the kitchens earlier, and the food had arrived, started to go cold, before he’d comm-ed the man and discovered Ben wasn’t going to turn up. He’d ended up picking at his steamed fish with wild herbs and green vegetables and wishing he’d just had a rationbar instead. It felt wrong to eat food, proper food, by himself.

Ben’s slab of meat, roasted vegetables, and boiled seedpods is in the refrigeration unit of his kitchenette, in case the man comes looking for it. In the morning he’ll probably get a droid to take it back to the kitchens and let them deal with disposing of it. 

He feels low. He’s not sure how much of that is the fact that Ben left him alone after the man promised to spend time with him. It seems out of character. It is strange that it seems out of character. He is not sure when they started spending so much of their free time together. He finds he misses the man. 

He is afraid that it’s not just Ben’s unexplained absence that is affecting his mood. Earlier, after washing the grime of Pyol Sem from his body, dressing back in a clean uniform complete with the new greatcoat that had been completed and delivered while they were on the derelict planet, he had gone to talk to the techs, the Stormtrooper Droid Squad Leaders, and inspect the droids. Right now the droids are being charged and returned to storage. The techs that worked on them all seem very pleased with themselves. The Stormtrooper Droid Squad Leaders had been thankful for their promotions, happy with the droid’s performance. He had felt very tired. He still feels very tired. The thought of how much death the droids will bring keeps preying on his mind. 

The more he thinks about it the more he believes some kind of infiltration mission will be the best way to take Arkanis. Perhaps this is simply because he wants to avoid the massive loss of life that will come about with an all-out war with the droids against Savim’s Stormtroopers. He thinks of the ones he killed on Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, following her because that’s what they’d been trained to do, to follow orders, and when that training failed they’d been reconditioned back into obedience. Just like him.

He’s not sure he can do this anymore. The doubts he feels are getting too much for him. It is almost as if, watching the droids, their army ready to kill, being put away after successfully being put through their paces, something inside him has finally cracked. He thinks it may be time to face facts, the man he actually is, not the man his father and Snoke made him into, is not a man fit for war. He does not glory in violence, in bloodshed. He never has, if what he remembers of the boy he was as a child is correct.

He can remember Arkanis, when he was young. He can remember those months his father had been gone. If only Brendol had died on that trip. His mother would have taken him from the Academy and brought him back to grow up amongst her people. If he had lived that life he would not have the blood on his hands that he does now. The blood that is coming.

He wishes there was a way that this war could be stopped. He remembers the island, being all but alone with Ben, away from it all. Part of him longs to go back. Part of him wishes they’d never left. They could have found a kind of peace there.

It is what happened on Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei that has crystallised all of this for him. All his uneasiness, discomfort and fear. He saw a world being ripped apart. If he was prone to flights of fancy he would say he almost _felt_ the destruction as it happened. The death. He is not sure he can stand any more. The image of the little figures, the figures walking, fighting, dying, the image that has been haunting him off and on for weeks now, keeps flashing behind his eyes. With it the other image from his dreams, all life in the galaxy going dark.

His eyes flick to the door to his berthroom. It is strange, to have a room with no purpose other than sleeping and storing clothes. The berth is comfortable, more comfortable than his old one had been, but it’s too big. He feels small when he lies down. It makes the loneliness he feels even worse.

Eventually he drags himself up from his desk and over to the bathroom to get ready for bed. There are dark shadows under his eyes in the mirror. He forces himself to meet his own gaze. He has become weak. Perhaps he was always weak, underneath. His father certainly thought so. Perhaps that’s why Ben didn’t eat with him, perhaps the man is finally seeing what he really is deep down inside. He looks away.

Dressed in plain navy coloured pyjamas he climbs into the berth. At first he tries to lie in the middle of the bed, but it makes the space around him yawn wide on either side, so he rolls towards one edge, ignoring all the space behind him to pretend he is back in the narrow berth of his old quarters. It takes a long time to fall asleep. 

_A voice. “Armitage.” He looks around. It is still dark. He sees nothing. “Armitage.” He knows that voice. Recognises it._

_“S-” he hesitates. “Supreme Leader?” he tries._

_“Armitage,” the voice comes from right beside him. He feels a presence. Warmth. Smells that old familiar smell. Snoke. “I lost you,” the man says, breath wafting over his face. “I couldn’t find you in all this Darkness.”_

_He shudders. He starts edging away from the figure he can feel but not see beside him. An arm comes around his waist, pulls him in close. He’s in Snoke’s arms. He knows the feel of those arms. A face is pressed against his neck. “He’s trying to take everything from me,” the man murmurs against the skin of his throat. He can feel Snoke’s mouth move against his flesh. His body feels slow. Cold. Unresponsive._

_“He took my life, he’s taken my throne, he’s taking my knowledge and-” the words turn into a kiss. A soft bite sucked against his neck. His arms go up, try to get in between them, try to push the man away._

_Suddenly it’s light. The room is red. Everything is red. The walls, the floor, the robe Snoke is wearing, the bed that the man is flinging him down onto. He bounces. Tries to skitter away._

_Snoke looms over him, climbs onto the bed, the man’s knee between his legs. “He wants to take you too, but he can’t have you. He can’t have you.” He tries to pull his legs up, out of the way, tries to turn over, tries to escape. Snoke pins him in place. He feels like a butterfly. Snoke the lepidopterist._

_“You’re mine. You’ll always be mine, do you understand me Armitage?” that voice he hasn’t heard in so long is saying. That form he hasn’t felt over him in so long presses close. One hand, bigger than his own though not as strong as Ben’s cups the side of his face. “He doesn’t want what’s up here-” the hand leaves, moves down, presses against his chest, over his heart, “-or what’s in here-” it moves again, worming its way down between his legs. He tries to press them closed, tries to keep that intrusive touch away. “-all he wants is what’s here. He just wants to fuck you, but you won’t let him, will you my love?”_

_“Get off me,” he says, surprising himself._

_Snoke laughs. The hand leaves, returns once more to his face. “Look at you, you’re glowing. It’s getting brighter and brighter by the day. That boy is too stupid to see it.” A movement of Snoke’s thumb, a caress of his cheek. “You are so beautiful. It makes me sick to think of him touching you.”_

_“Get off me,” he repeats, but it comes out weaker. He feels so cold. Frozen._

_“You are mine,” Snoke whispers, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his lips. Another. Snoke never kissed him on the mouth in life. It feels strange. Cold. Dry. “Mine until death. Mine beyond death.”_

_“Please,” he whispers, trying to find the strength the throw the man off him. The strength doesn’t come._

He wakes, afraid. His face is wet. He has been crying in his sleep. He does not remember what he was dreaming. 

It is still early by ship time but there is no chance that he will be able to get back to sleep. He gets up, bathes, dresses, nibbles on the edge of a rationbar and begins his day. He starts by finishing the last of the paperwork to transfer Snoke’s bequest to Ben. Now all he needs are the man’s signature and geneprint. After that there isn’t anything urgent that needs his attention so mainly he spends his time inspecting things, walking the ship. The hours pass. He doesn’t hear from Ben.

Rumours and reports of something being awry at Dominion Base come in, but no information as to what that may be comes with them. Savim’s fleet is growing by the day, but so far her flagship hasn’t been completed. Perhaps that is why she is waiting to go after Mour. Perhaps she is waiting until she can make the most dramatic impression.

Late afternoon he comms Ben. He wants to see the man. The man doesn’t reply. He tries again and again. Eventually he comms the bridge and asks them where the man is. “The old Supreme Leader’s quarters,” is what the commstech tells him. 

Snoke’s rooms. The very thought of the man sends a shiver of dread through him. For a moment he can’t breathe. Can’t think. Has to sit down. A blink, two, three, and he finds himself seated on a bench near the Engineering department. There’s no one around. He’s shivering. He makes himself breathe, in and out, in and out. 

In and out. He gets to his feet, heads towards Ben, towards Snoke’s old rooms. He feels distant from himself, almost floating outside his own body. Still he acknowledges the salutes of the crew he passes. 

He hesitates outside Snoke’s quarters. He has not been back here since Ben called him Snoke’s whore. He remembers the feel of the Force encircling him, knocking him off his feet. He remembers that Ben wouldn’t listen. He remembers what Ben asked, whether he’d spread his legs right then to secure his place in the man’s new Order. He’d said _no_. He’d managed to stand up to the man. If only there had been a way for him to stand up to Snoke. Ben hadn’t meant it, he reminds himself.

He steps forward. The rooms are not like he remembers. Much of their wealth has been stripped back, revealing the framework underneath the glossy surface Snoke liked to portray. Ben is not in the main room. He creeps further inwards, eying the doors, wondering which one conceals the man.

A sense, he’s not sure what it is, leads him to the door of the library. He opens it, steps inside. 

_**DARNKESS.**_

He gasps in a breath. It feels like walking into a cold storage unit. The air is freezing, thick. The lights are on, he can see, but part of his mind keeps insisting that he can’t, that everything within is opaque, dark, smothering. Strange shadows seem to leap and jump across every surface. All the hairs on his body stand on end. He can smell something. Something off. Something rotting. A cold smell. A smell beyond the smell of death. His face buzzes, whines. The Dark Side feels like it is pressing in close. 

Ben. The man stands in the middle of the room, surrounded by piles and piles of books. In his hand a slim volume, bound in gold leather, hangs. He is glaring at it. Almost snarling at it. 

His hair seems blacker than pitch, as if it is swallowing all light. His eyes are like two holes into the abyss. His skin is pale, pallid, blue veins picking their way across its surface. He can feel the Darkness here too. The Darkness in Ben. Different than the quicksilver Darkness he’s used to. The merciless, wild, natural element that Ben has. There has always been something to Ben that reminds him a little of the strike of a cat’s paw, the lance of lightning, the raging flood of the river, the unexpected rumble of an earthquake, the consuming wave of a tsunami. This is not that kind of Darkness, that kind born of the natural cycle of life and death, this is steady, staid, the composed Darkness of Snoke. 

“Yes?” the man asks, his voice an unwelcoming hiss.

“Sorry Sir,” he replies, turning to go. “I did not mean to interrupt you.”

“No-” Ben begins, making him turn back. The man’s voice sounds more normal, the book drops from his hand to flutter to the red leather couch. The Darkness lifts from the room. “No. You didn’t interrupt me. What time is it?”

“Late afternoon,” he replies, then, after a hesitation, remembering the day before. “I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me?” He’ll ask the man to sign and geneprint the documents then.

Ben frowns. “Oh,” the man looks around, stares almost in confusion at the books piled all around him. “I was- I got caught up. Yes. Dinner. In an hour or so? I’ll come to your rooms like I was supposed to do yesterday.”

He nods, “An hour or so,” and all but flees. 

As he scurries from Snoke’s quarters a flicker, something red out of the corner of his eye catches his attention. He turns back. Nothing. The main room is as empty and derelict as it was when he arrived.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid I'm in a bit of a rush again, still I do want to take the time to thank you all properly for reading, leaving kudos, and comments. I hope your day is going well.

He watches Hux leave. Around him lies the wreckage of his frantic search through Snoke’s books. He feels empty. He knows he read most of the night, slept a little on the couch and woke to read some more, but he remembers almost nothing of what any of the books said. Most of it had been about controlling people. Building bonds between minds. Influencing thoughts. Increasing fear, paranoia, aggression. Directly controlling people or manipulating them to do what one wants. 

His eyes flick to the gold book, the one he was looking at when Hux arrived. It lies half open, pages rumpled, on the couch. He does not want to pick it up again. He makes himself.

Bending down he lifts the slim volume, flicks though it to where he was up to. Once more the book is handwritten, the writing recognisable, but the language perfect Galactic Standard, the word choices more mature. A lot of it talks about the Stormtrooper program. Brendol Hux. The interesting elements of the conditioning process that align with what Snoke knows of using the Force to influence minds. This is not the problem. The problem is a long note in the margins, written in black ink instead of the blue that comprises most of the book, the writing a little rougher, a little more recent.

_’It seems that controlling behaviour, or creating an artificial framework for someone’s thoughts, does not control the underlying emotions or thought processes, particularly in a strong mind or the mind of someone strong in the Force, no matter how much time has passed. Contrary to hopes affection has not materialised in A. Fear still persists underneath. The framework is limiting him and some part of him seems to be aware of it, as his mind is beginning to reject it. No matter how amusing it was, it seems Starkiller might have been a mistake. Before the framework can be removed something will have to be done to induce the appropriate feelings in him. I wish to have him as he is, mind to mind. He could be so much more than what his father intended.’_

_A_ he suspects stands for Armitage. Hux. This is Snoke writing about Hux. This is Snoke writing about inducing affection in Hux so that he could remove whatever he’d done to the man to reinforce his father’s reconditioning. He thinks back to what Gydn showed him, that emotion Snoke felt. _Could Snoke have been in love with Hux?_ Was Snoke even capable of love? 

He feels disgusted. Utterly disgusted. 

_If Snoke was in love with Hux it obviously wasn’t the kind of love that involved a lot of respect for the beloved’s autonomy._ The man was looking for a whole new way to control Hux. He thinks of the book bound in red, the book about the heart, the images of that line of silver extending from the standing man down into the chest of the man lying down, looking agonised. The way the heart had been picked out in that same colour. The way that same man had looked up at the other one with such devotion as they fucked in the next illumination. 

He could be wrong. He doesn’t know if he’s wrong. He can’t know until he can decipher the text, but it seems to him very likely that the red book might contain a way to use the Force to make someone in love with the person using the Force against them. A way that Snoke intended to make Hux in love with him. He is very glad he killed Snoke before the man got his hands on that book. 

He rubs his thumb over Snoke’s note in the margins of the book. The ink is dry, it doesn’t smudge. He wishes he could smudge it out of existence. Closing the volume carefully he places it on the table beside the couch and sinks down to sit on the red leather. He rests his head in his hands. He doesn’t know what to do with this new knowledge, how to face Hux. Whether he should even hint at what he suspects.

He will have to pull himself together before he meets Hux for dinner. He will have to work out how much, if anything, he should say. Nothing, probably. It will distress the redhead. He thinks back to how Hux had looked hiding in his bathroom after Gigin Swuey’s hologram had told him about Snoke’s will, shown them that holostill. _Nothing._ He can tell Hux nothing. He wishes he didn’t know hims-

_** DARKNESS.  ** _

He gasps. Sinks to his knees. It feels like his ears are ringing. He tries to look around, tries to work out what’s happening.

_** YEARNING.  ** _

Something is- He can feel it. The Dark. Someone is channelling a huge amount of the Dark Side. Somewhere nearby.

_** HUNGRY.  ** _

He needs to, he needs- Somehow he gets to his feet, drawing on the Dark himself to ward off to dizziness, sickness, wrongness of what he feels. It’s nearby. He reaches out, sends his consciousness across the ship. He can feel the crew, the droids being repaired, Saiva stopped and staring towards his quarters through the walls of the ship. 

_** HELP ME.  ** _

_Panic_ blares across the bond between him and Saiva. A moment later more _panic_ blares across the bond between him and Neiro. He reaches towards his Knights, feels for them, feels Saiva breaking into a run, feels Neiro heading with determination towards the shuttle bay, feels Gydn-

_** DARKNESS.  ** _

Gydn. A void. Onboard the Finalizer and not the Rectitude. Just outside Hux’s quarters. 

_** HELP ME.  ** _

He comms Hux. No Reply. He tries again, still no reply. He comms the Bridge. “Where’s Hux?” he demands before the commstech has even finished his ‘Supreme Leader, Sir!’

_** I’M SO COLD.  ** _

“Heading back to his rooms Sir!” the commstech begins. He ends the comm. Whirls around. Breaks into a run.

_** I’M SO HUNGRY.  ** _

Hux. Hux is in danger.

_** HUNGRY.  ** _

Gydn is the one channelling the Dark Side so strongly. Gydn is probably the one who has been channelling the Dark Side on the Rectitude in the past, judging from how it feels. Neiro, and probably Saiva, have been lying to him.

_** HUNGRY.  ** _

A blink and he’s racing down corridors, moving people out of the way with the Force. He needs to get to the shuttle bay. He needs to- “What the fuck is happening?” he snarls along the connection to Saiva and Neiro.

_“I’m sorry my Lord,”_ Neiro hisses along the link. _“She slipped away from me.”_

“What the fuck-” he begins, only to be interrupted by Saiva.

_“She’s going for the Lightsider!”_ the man shrieks. _“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I won’t be strong enough to stop her. You have to hurry Ben!”_

“Lightsider?” he breathes.

_“Your General Hux you bloody idiot!”_ Neiro snaps.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this far, and for leaving kudos and comments.

“General?” a voice. Phasma’s modulated voice, accompanied by a metallic wheeze.

He looks up from where he’s watching his boots rap sharply on the Finalizer’s polished floor as he walks back to his quarters after leaving Snoke’s rooms. He feels uneasy. It feels like the old Supreme Leader is walking with him. She’s standing before him. “Yes Captain?”

“I wish to speak with you,” she says.

Ah, yes. He did say they would talk after he returned from testing the droids. He has been putting it off again. “Come with me to my rooms,” he replies after a moment. “We can speak there.” He cannot imagine what she has to say. Perhaps she has come to confront him. 

“Yes Sir,” she replies. 

There is a moment of confusion as she tries to head for his old rooms, but soon enough they are both off in the direction of his new quarters. She says nothing. He says nothing. The sense that he has betrayed her is back. How can he begin to explain himself?

_Cold._ He freezes in place. Something feels wrong. A whine starts up. Except it’s not a whine. It’s the soundsensation of someone channelling the Dark Side of the Force. Stronger than he has ever felt before. The whine gets louder, the inside of his head starts to buzz to the point of agony. He scrunches up his face, moves his jaw, tries to shake off the sensation. It changes. Becomes deeper. Then feels like it _pops._ Suddenly it feels like he is in a world completely without sound, even though he can hear Phasma swear mechanically. 

He looks at her. She’s looking around wildly, blaster drawn and in her hand. She freezes. Helmet facing back the way they came. He looks to what she’s looking at. The noise/not-noise seems to fill his whole world. Muffling his sense of self.

A Knight is approaching down the corridor. It’s not Neiro or Saiva Ren, but the other, the silent one of the first two he ever saw. Gydn Ren. The figure is tall, at least as tall as Ben, and swathed in loose black robes. The masked head is tilted to the side, as if examining him. The Knight’s boots don’t make a sound as the figure approaches, the Knight’s robes don’t rustle. For a moment he gets a sense, a memory of Snoke coming to him as a Force Projection, but it’s not quite the same. There is substance here that there wasn’t with Snoke, but not a sense of the same kind of substance as an ordinary person.

The air feels as if it’s freezing. His breath, short, panted little huffs of air, begins to leave trails of steam in the air. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Phasma faltering. Her blaster lowering before raising before lowering again. 

He raises his hand to comm Ben. Fear is rising. His thoughts are getting muddier and muddier. It feels as if his consciousness if about to be wiped clean. Still, a part of him knows, can tell, that this seems like Dark Jedi, Sith, whatever Ben is, business. 

A blink. His arm is weak. It drops back to his side. A blink, the Knight is closer but he didn’t see the figure move. A blink. Closer. A blink. A hand, a bare hand with blue-tipped fingers is wrapped around his wrist. The cold burns even through the cloth of his coat and greatcoat. A blink. He’s being dragged forward. A blink. Another hand on his face, not caressing like Sunny Adar or gentle like Ben. Fingers grasping, sharp nails tearing his skin. A blink.

_I’m so hungry. I’m so cold. Help me. Help me. I’m lost. I’m so hungry. Help me. I’m lost. Where am I? I’m so cold. I’m so hungry. So hungry. So cold. I’m lost. Help me. Feed me. Help me. I’m so cold. So cold. So cold. Cold. HUNGRY. Help me. Help me. Help me. HELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPME. I’m so hungry. I’m lost. Where am I? What is this? I’m so cold. I’m so hungry. Help me. Feed me. Where am I? I’m so cold. Help me. I’m so hungry. Help me. Where am I? What is this? Help me. Help me. HELP ME. I’m so cold. So cold. So HUNGRY. Help me. I can feel you. I can see you. Who are you? Why are you here with me? Help me. HELP ME. It’s so dark here. Help me. I can see your light. Help me. I’m hungry. FEED ME._

It feels like a thousand fingers are crawling all over his face, his head. Trying to claw their way in, prying at his mouth and his nose and his eyes and his ears.  
_FEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDMEFEEDME._

The sensation spreads. Invades. Starts clawing at his mind. Trying to drag something out of him. Reflexively he tries to block it. It shreds whatever defence he managed to raise. Something hot rises inside of him, his chest, his throat, his mind. The heat starts being drawn out of him, like thread spun fine. His body convulses with it, this thing being taken. 

_ GIVEMEYOURLIGHTI’MSOCOLDGIVEMEYOURLIGHTI’MSOCOLDGIVEMEYOURLIGHTI’MSOCOLD  _

Something in him rebels. _**“NO!”**_ he roars in his mind _**“GET OFF ME!”**_ Somehow his body his moving again, his hands coming up and grasping the wrists of the figure clawing at him. 

A flash. A blink. 

_He’s in a dark place. A featureless place. There is no source of light but still he can see. A tall, skinny girl stands before him, her wrists clenched in his hands. She’s little more than a child, in her mid teens. Long, lank blonde hair hangs about her gaunt face, framing the palest of blue eyes. She’s weeping. Endless tears flowing down her cheeks from eyes that look bruised in their sockets. “I don’t know what’s happening,” she whimpers, her voice is soft, her accent Coruscanti. “I don’t know where I am. Please, please you have to help me-”_

A flash. A blink. 

_ HELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPME. _

The tearing sensation is back. Whatever it is it’s clawing all the heat from within him. The skin of the Knight no longer burns, he is just as cold. He can hear nothing. See nothing. Feel nothing but the sensation of some integral part of him being devoured. 

He grabs at the heat being taken from him with his mind, trying to drag it back inside. It slips away from him, the force on the other end stronger than he is. No. No. He can’t take it back by force. He should just give in. No. Not give in. He does not want to give in. He does not want this. _**He does not want this.**_

He feels something, something deep inside, crack. Shatter. A barrier. A filter blocking out much of the light. Not his own. Not to start with. A thing from outside that his mind has grown around and through. 

_ **HEAT. LIGHT.** _

The sensation roars though him, filling him full to bursting, then rushes outwards, flowing along the strand between himself and that cold and hungry mind, swelling to bursting, bursting though. Flooding in past barriers the other is desperately trying to raise. He feels something give way before him, pushes himself through that crack, all those cracks, between all fragments that come together to make the snare around his mind. A flash, double vision, himself and not himself, the figure in front of him who is him is not him is the Knight dressed in black is the masked child collapses. A flash. A breath. Another breath. Voices. No. Echoes in his mind. Ben. Neiro Ren. Phasma. A breath. He falls.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: chapter contains some themes of body-horror.
> 
> Hello everyone. This chapter exhausted me when I wrote it and I'm still not sure I like how it turned out. I hope you all find it OK. Thanks, as always, for reading, leaving comments and kudos. I hope you're all doing well.

He races through the halls of the ship, shoving everyone who isn’t fast enough out of the way with the Force. _Lightsider? What the fuck do they mean by Lightsider? What the fuck’s happening?_ The link with Saiva went dead a moment ago. Neiro isn’t responding, though he can still feel the Knight there.

The Dark Side roars up ahead, a miasma that feels as if it is drawing all life and light inside of it. It feels wrong. The Dark tainted in some way, if such a thing was possible. He is not sure he has ever felt anything like this. Even when he, himself, has drawn deeply on the Dark it has not felt this corrupted, broken, incomplete. Even Snoke’s use of the Force had not felt like this, though it had felt closer. Perhaps this what the Dark Side feels like without even a shadow of the Light contaminating it. 

He turns the corner into the hall where his quarters, Hux’s quarters, are and almost trips on Saiva. The man is lying slumped against the wall. Still alive, he thinks, but doesn’t stop to check. 

Up ahead he sees Gydn and Hux. Gydn’s hands are on Hux’s face, Hux’s hands are grasping the Knight’s wrists. Behind them he spots someone he thinks is Phasma, standing still as if frozen in place, her blaster part way between raised and lowered. He rushes forwards and-

He stops. His body feels stuck, trapped in something thick, sticky, cold. He pushes against it. Achieves nothing. Reaches for the Force. Hux is just there, less than an arm’s length away. He can only see slices of the man’s face between Gydn’s fingers. His skin is so pale, his mouth is tinged blue. He can see one eye, wide open and unseeing.

Clawing at whatever is binding him with the Force he tries to break free. Still, nothing happens. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” he realises he’s muttering. He feels panicked. _What’s happening?_ Gydn is doing something to Hux, but he can’t tell what it is. It’s some kind of attack with the Force. Something he’s never seen, never felt before. He’s helpless to stop it. He’s failing Hux again. 

He hears a sound, footsteps pounding against the floor. Feels Neiro coming closer. **“WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?”** he roars, both out loud and across their bond.

“Oh fuck!” the Knight moans. “Oh fuck.”

He feels like he’s losing his grip on the Force. His face is starting to feel numb.

_ **HEAT. LIGHT.** _

The Light Side roars up around them, shredding the Dark, shredding whatever was holding him. He slumps forward, lurching towards Hux- 

_ **HEAT. LIGHT.** _

It roars through him. It burns. It burns. It burns. It burns. It burns. It burns. He loses his grip on the Dark Side. The burn fades, the heat changes, it feels like stepping into a warm bath. He feels Hux there, like when he joined their minds, but stronger. So strong. Strong in the Light. Strong in the Force. Different to his mother, different to Luke, different to Rey. The Light as seen from a different angle.

As suddenly as it appeared it vanishes. He stumbles forward, on step, two. He blinks. Afterimages flicker across his mind’s eye. He blinks. In front of him he sees Gydn collapse like puppet with its strings cut. A moment later Phasma falls. 

Hux wavers. The man’s eyes are fluttering. He’s blinking rapidly. The redhead collapses.

He rushes forward, reaching out with a half numb and aching grasp of the Force at the same time to catch the man. Hux slips through his Force grasp, the tendrils he tries to wrap around the man seem to dissolve, coming apart and slipping away as they make contact. He’s not fast enough in body. Hux hits the floor.

He leans over the man, cups his face. He reaches out with his uneasy grasp of the Force, trying to make sure the redhead’s still alive. Again the Force dissolves before it can touch the man. The man must be doing something to dissipate the Force as it touches him. He’s never heard of such a thing. His hand flies desperately to Hux’s neck, feeling for a pulse. Rapid, fluttering. He’s still alive. 

His eyes flick over to Gydn. _What was that?_ The thought that Hux might be able to channel the Force is hard enough to cope with, but whatever happened the man only did so to protect himself from attack. Attack by Gydn. 

He reaches for the Dark, draws deep even though it burns worse that it has ever since he was a child and Snoke was showing him the way, and prepares to strike. “Please don’t!” Neiro shouts, flinging themselves forward to stand between him and his prey. “It’s not her fault. She can’t help it.”

His attention turns. He strikes out, wrapping the Dark Side around Neiro and pinning the Knight to the wall. “Start explaining or I’ll kill you too.”

“Oh lovely,” the Knight grunts, “This is a lovely bit of behaviour right here. Could you let me go? It’s not like I’m going to run off.” He slams the knight against the wall. “Ok,” Neiro grunts, “I accept that this is the choice you’re making. If you want to know what happened I’m going to have to talk about Snoke, is that ok with you My Lord?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he snaps, walking over to Gydn and prodding the woman with his toe. She makes no sound. He reaches out to her with the Force, feels nothing. No, not quite nothing. A flicker, somewhere very far away. She’s not dead, but she’s not far off. 

“I suppose there’s no reason My Lord, no reason at all,” the way the Knight says it suggests Neiro thinks there is at least one very good reason why discussing Snoke might upset him. The Knight’s right. There’s more than one reason even the thought of Snoke infuriates him, especially now, with what he’s just learned about the man’s most recent intentions towards Hux. He doesn’t press that issue, in favour of the one at hand.

“Stop stalling,” he snarls.

“Yes, My Lord, of course my Lord,” the Knight begins. “Do you remember when we were kids, at your uncle’s temple?”

He kneels down beside Hux, pulls the man into his lap. He should take the man to the medbay, or maybe back to his rooms. He glances at Gydn’s fallen form. At Neiro. At Phasma. Senses for Saiva’s slumped body. None of them are dead. “Yes, I do. Can I trust you not to run away while we move this somewhere more comfortable?”

“Of course My Lord,” the Knight replies, prompt. “Me, run away? Never.”

The medbay is probably the best choice, that way he can get Hux hooked up so he can monitor the man’s vital signs without using the Force. He will carry Hux, he can’t use the Force to lift him, and he will need to keep Neiro under control, but the others- he comms for medtechs and stretchers, cradling Hux to keep him comfortable while they wait. 

The redhead lies slumped against him, pale, almost lifeless. His fingers go back to the man’s pulse, still alive. His hand shifts, cups Hux’s face. Those freckles shine in the light. Such a beautiful creature. _Will he always fail to keep Hux safe?_

The techs arrive, racing into the hallway only to slow. He feels apprehension, fear, begin to fill the air. Eyes linger on Hux’s slumped form. They are afraid he’s dead. 

Standing he scoops Hux into his arms, sure the man must get lighter every time. He needs to eat more. Perhaps they should have breakfast together as well as dinner, maybe lunch as well. “Bring my two unconscious Knights and Captain Phasma to the medbay,” he orders, letting Neiro down from the wall, a snare of the Force still curled tight around their neck in case they decide to run.

The techs load the unconscious forms onto the stretchers, eying Hux but not attempting to take the man from him. Their strange little party walks the halls of the ship, the crew stopping, staring as they pass. That fear rises around them, the fear that Hux is dead, and inside it the fear that he is the one who has killed the man. He ignores it. For now. Neiro walks along beside him, tugging every now and then on the leash of the Force he still has wrapped around the Knight’s neck. 

The medbay is empty aside from one of the Stormtroopers from Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei who is lying in one of the berths. The woman blinks, begins to drag herself into a sitting position as they enter. He reaches out with the Force, guides her into sleep. He doesn’t want witnesses for the conversation he will have with Neiro. 

He chooses the best berth for Hux, the officers’ emergency berth, and lays the man down onto its comfortable surface. Around his he sees techs transferring the others, Saiva, Gydn, Phasma, onto other berths. A wave of his hand dismisses the techs. The medidroids rush over and start scanning the redhead. He watches for a moment, comforted as they pick up the redhead’s lifesigns, before he turns to Neiro. “You were saying? About when we were children?”

The Knight stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, unable to go far due to the collar of the Force around their neck. Neiro snorts out a laugh. Not a happy one. “You were always so strong. Naturally far stronger than everyone else. Stronger than your uncle, even. Where we could lift rocks one day you would grow to move mountains, or at least that’s what Zhva’adtm used to say in that wonderfully pretentious way he had. Of course Snoke wanted you, he wanted you for your strength. What did you think he was going to do with the rest of us poor bastards?”

“I don’t understand,” he frowns, “What’s that got to do with what just happened?”

“I don’t suppose Snoke ever put you through any funny old Sith rituals, did any _experiments_ to make you stronger?” The Knight keeps talking before he can answer, before he can say _no._ “Nah. Didn’t think so. As I said, you were plenty strong enough already. Now me? I may never be as strong as you, but Luke was right, back then I never put in the effort. I learnt to right quick though, I can tell you that. In some ways Snoke was a much better teacher than your uncle. Fear is a great motivator.”

“What are you saying?” he snaps. This just seems like more of Neiro’s deflection. He thinks of the excuses the knight gave for the Dark Side being so strong on the Rectitude, thinks of tracing it back and finding Neiro as the source. _Was it though? Or was Neiro just pretending, channelling as strongly as they could to hide what Gydn was up to?_

“Once,” the Knight replies, holding up a single finger. “Only the once did I let him put me through one of those rituals, then never again. As I said, I learnt to put in the effort and then I got strong enough to please the man and then I got really good at bowing and scraping and insisting that I lived to serve and didn’t need to be strong enough to conquer anything. An eternal servant, that’s me, a real brown noser. The rest of them, our old friends, were either too bloody stupid or too bloody ambitious for their own good.”

He sinks down to sit on the chair beside Hux’s berth, reaching out to tuck a strand of copper hair behind the man’s ears. A medidroid whines a complaint at him, fluttering spiderlike limbs to warn him from touching the patient until the man has been fully assessed. The things Neiro is saying are making him feel very, very tired. “Are you saying Gydn attacked Hux because of Snoke?”

“She was always self-conscious about how weak she was compared to the rest of us, stupid girl,” the Knight sighs, tugging at the collar of the Force he has around their neck. “Can you let this go now? As I said, I’m not going to run off.”

“No,” he replies, dragging the Knight over and dumping them in another chair, by another berth. He wraps the Force around this chair and drags it over, the metal legs screeching against the plasteel floor. “So Snoke conducted rituals on her and that’s why she attacked Hux?”

“That’s why she attacks everything, eventually, that has even a whiff of the Light Side about it. Like those delivery boys. She really ate them up. I had to flush their husks out an airlock. Whatever he did to her that last time left something broken in her. She’s ‘hungry,’ or at least that’s how she understands it. As much as she can really understand anything these days.” A breath “The Sith were really fucked up.”

“Delivery boys?” he begins. “From _The Beauteous Vunfa_? Is that why Saiva left the ship?”

A tilt of that helmeted head. “We were looking for her. I’d told him she’d gotten loose. He wanted to stop her before she did anything that got us in trouble. Got her in trouble. She was back on the ship by the time you summoned him though, with her prey. I had to deal with it while he had to deal with worrying you would find out. Poor bastard.”

“ _Why didn’t you just tell me?_ ” he snarls. “What did you think I would do?”

A shrug. “Kill her. That’s what we thought.”

“And you didn’t want me to,” he breathes out. _Did they really think of him like that?_ Once upon a time they all would have trusted him with their lives, and he trusted them with his. What had Snoke done to them? To all of them? _To him?_

“No, we didn’t. Maybe,” Neiro begins, voice weak but getting stronger, “Maybe we were wrong. I don’t know. Truth told I don’t know you anymore, none of us do. I don’t think you know us either.”

He lets that sink in. Neiro is probably right, except he feels like those connections have been returning. At least with Xatjt, thanks to her wife, and Saiva from their sparring, from the conversation they had about Snoke punishing the man. 

The medidroid beeps again. His eyes rove over Hux’s face, so still and pale. “He has the Force,” it’s not a question. There’s enough evidence now to support it. All those odd little things he hadn’t put together. How easy it was to link their minds, how easy it was for Hux to communicate with him that way, the time on Gigin Swuey’s moon when the redhead blocked him from his mind, Hux’s voice reaching for him in the River of Tears, Hux turning to look moments before Rey bounded down the stairs. Also that note in Snoke’s book. Snoke must have known. _Perhaps Snoke blocked Hux’s access to the Force to keep him compliant._ A foul thing to do.

“Yeah, we were all really surprised that you didn’t seem to notice.” _What?_ Does that mean the Knights knew?

_”You should have said something!”_ he snarls, getting to his feet and rounding on Neiro. He lifts the Knight out of the chair and shakes them. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“It wasn’t really our business?” the Knight tries. He shakes them again. “We thought you might get angry with us.”

“Why would I get angry with you?” he snarls.

“Because ever since you went to Snoke you’ve been getting angry with anyone about everything,” Neiro snaps. He drops the Knight back into the chair. He sinks back down into his own. He rubs a hand over his eyes. The thought makes him uncomfortable. Neiro might be right.

“So,” he says after a long moment. “You knew Hux could use the Force, you knew he could use the Light Side,” that’s what it had been, the Light Side, not the Dark. The purest Light Side he had ever felt anyone channel before, “you knew Gydn was likely to attack him because of it, and you decided not to tell me any of this.”

“Ah,” the Knight breathes out. “I can see why you might not be all that happy when you put it like that, but we, or at least Saiva and myself, Xatjt when she was here, were doing our best to keep Gydn contained. She’s been alright, for the most part. Admittedly she’s been draining the crew of the Rectitude a bit, but not enough to kill them, though we’ve had to stop her from taking too much because it makes you pissy with us.”

“What about Hux?” he snaps. “What about those delivery boys you mentioned earlier?”

“The delivery boys were a one off,” the Knight replies, dismissive “and your General, well he is a _Lightsider_ and by now she must be terribly hungry.” A pause, “Maybe I should have said something. Saiva wanted to say something- but I just didn’t know how you’d react. I still don’t know. I don’t know what you’re going to do to all of us.”

He wants to scream at the Knight. Strike them. Shake them until their neck breaks. This isn’t good enough. It is his own fault. He brought them to Snoke. He let Snoke do whatever the man did to them without ever questioning things. He failed to ensure everyone realised how important Hux is to him. He reaches out, takes the redhead’s limp hand in his own. 

“I’m not sure I believe you about any of this,” he says after a moment. He does though, the Force is telling him it’s the truth, but he’s not sure he wants to believe it. The thought of being forced to confront exactly what he led them into when he brought them to Snoke is hard to bear. Everything would be so much easier if Neiro is just spinning lies to try and save their own skin. “How do I know you’re telling the truth, and this wasn’t just you all betraying me?”

“Why don’t you reach out to her with the Force, not just to check her lifesigns, but really reach in and see what’s there.” Neiro snorts, “Hell, if that’s too difficult you could just remove her helmet. She’s not the girl we once knew anymore.”

He glances over at Gydn’s form, slumped on another berth. Medidroids are buzzing around her, their beeps sounding alarmed. He reaches out to her, properly, not just the surface skim of earlier. His ears begin to ring. He feels cold. He reaches, reaches, trying to get some kind of a grasp on that tiny, far away speck of life. 

It latches on to him. 

_A great hollow, sucking void. Trying to drag him down. He cannot tell if it’s boiling or freezing. He feels its hunger. Feels its fear. It’s so cold. It’s trapped in the dark. It does not understand. He feels like he’s gone deaf, like he’s hearing a sound so loud he cannot hear anything else through it. He feels the void claw at him, trying to get a grip on the Force he’s channelling. He resists. It’s not strong enough. The sound, if it is a sound, resolves itself into a scream. A girl’s scream. An endless scream._

He pulls away, feeling it resist. A blink. He’s in his body, sitting in the chair by Hux’s berth, the redhead’s fingers clenched in his. He’s shivering. The cold lingers. He glances back at Gydn. There was no mind there, the consciousness must have been driven out by what Hux did to defend himself. All that was left agony.

Getting to his feet makes him feel old. For a moment he has the sense of being himself but not himself, lines of pain and exhaustion overlapping his own still strong body. He walks over to the Knight on the berth and reaches for her helmet, disengaging it and lifting it away gently. A stink rises in the air, like decay, like rotting meat. The face underneath is barely recognisable. 

Kaepala Lethris was always tall and thin, but the woman he sees is past gaunt and well into emaciated. Her skin, once pale where it wasn’t red from the sun, is white with an unhealthy blue tinge. In places it seems to be rotting, patches of dark blue edging into black blooming across the surface. Everywhere her skin seems dry, peeling, but where the dark patches are it’s cracked, milky fluid oozing out in places, others covered with shiny black scabs that look like beetles. Her blonde hair has thinned, turned nearly the same white as her skin. It hangs in ragged clumps from her skull. He sees the same sores, or whatever they are, on her scalp in between the brittle strands. 

Her face is scarred. Some obviously battle injuries, but others probably healed or partially healed lesions. The most confronting thing is her mouth, almost black like the sores, the edges of her lips ragged, gone in places, as if she has been biting off parts of her own flesh. He can see her teeth, gone a yellow-grey, the edges sharp where parts have been cracked off. Her gums are black, little strands of tissue hanging off them and stuck to her teeth. 

Her eyes are rolled back in her head, sunk deep into their sockets. The edges of her eyelids are encrusted with little black scabs, a few broken open and oozing the same milky fluid into her eyes. Little veins of dark blue cover the whites of her eyes and obscure the edge of her iris, black instead of the pale blue he remembers.

He doesn’t want to look any more. He backs away. “Snoke did this to her?” He feels like a child choking on guilt. This is not the Dark Side as Snoke described it to him in the beginning. There is nothing pure in this, nothing strong. It is something twisted. This is the final nail in the coffin of what he once believed in. Snoke was corrupt, Snoke corrupted him, Snoke corrupted his friends, Hux, everything the old man touched. It all needs to be washed clean. 

“As I said, My Lord,” Neiro replies. What kind of ritual, _rituals_ could have done this? He thinks back over the books he read but nothing strikes him. Perhaps kept the books with knowledge about this aspect of the Dark Side somewhere else.

“What about the others? You?” he finds himself asking. He’s not sure he wants to know. He has to know. He has to face this. 

“Look, can I take this off?” the Knight asks, hand going up to their helmet. “To tell you the truth I’m tired of this child’s game. I don’t know how this is going to end. I don’t know if I’m getting out of here alive, or if you’re going to kill me, but if I’m going to die I’d rather do it with my own face.”

“Go ahead,” he says. _Child’s game?_ He supposes Neiro is right, the idea of the Knights of Ren seemed so romantic, so powerful, so exciting when they were children. 

The Knight disengages their helmet and pulls it off, dropping it to the floor by their chair with a dull thump. Narem Vhloe looks at him through a face older, scarred from battle, but reassuringly still the same. The only real difference is those brown eyes, now with a faint ring of gold around the pupil. “As you can see,” the Knights says, gesturing at their own face “and as I said, I got out of it relatively unscathed. The others-” Neiro screws up their face and lifts a hand, tilting it back and forth to indicate so-so. “Xatjt’s probably the next best off, then Jrii, but Saiva’s not good, and Rhadn’s almost as fucked up as Gydn-”

“Has he betrayed me?” he asks. “Rhadn?” The man still hasn’t attempted contact.

The Knight looks away. “I don’t know. It has been a long time since I knew what he was thinking.” A bitter smile twists that homely face. “Of all of us he was the most eager in chasing Snoke’s teachings. He never really got over the fact that no matter how hard he worked you were always going to be stronger.”

“I didn’t know-” he begins. He should have known. He _let_ Snoe treat him like a child for all those years, let the man keep him in ignorance. “Do you regret leaving with me?” 

“I didn’t think you did,” a pause, a tilt of the head, “at least most of the time I didn’t think you did. Sometimes- Well, I remember how lost you were. I remember that he promised you purpose. Sometimes I doubted, I admit it. But since we’ve all been back together I’ve been pretty sure you didn’t know, would have tried to stop him if you did. You’ve always been loyal. You haven’t always been a good man, but you’ve always been loyal. That’s why it was so easy for Snoke to lead you astray, like he did, after your uncle betrayed you. You were all lost at sea.” 

Another pause, this one longer. Neiro looks to the side, frowns. “Do I regret it? I don’t know. There was nothing for me once the temple fell, no family, no other friends.” The Knights glances back at the berths holding Gydn and Saiva. “Things have been pretty shit, to be honest, but at least I’ve had the others. Well, Saiva and Xatjt, Gydn as much as she was able, Jrii sometimes. If I hadn’t gone with you I would have ended up dead and what happened to them still would have happened. Mostly I regret the fact that Snoke ever reached out to you in the first place, but that’s not your fault. I grew out of blaming you for that one a long time ago. You were a child, a vulnerable one at that.”

_A child._ Yes. He was. They all were. _What had he been thinking?_ No. No, it was Snoke. Snoke had been doing the thinking for him. For too long he let the man control him. He has already sworn that he is not Snoke, but he’s still been walking the path the man laid out for him. He releases his grip on the Dark Side, lets Neiro go. He gasps in a breath of relief. Only once it’s gone does he realise exactly how much it had ached to hold onto. Ached in a way it hasn’t since he was a child, listening to Snoke as the man worked to destroy his world. A glance at Hux. A memory of the Light Side washing through him, burning out the Dark. 

Neiro is looking at him, assessing him. “What do you want to do now?” he asks.

“Are you going to kill me?” Neiro asks him. “Kill Saiva? Kill Gydn?”

“I’m angry with you,” he says, and it’s true. No matter what Snoke may have done to the Knight he cannot forgive them for putting Hux in danger. “But I’m not going to kill you.” _Unless you betray me_ , he thinks but doesn’t say. “As for Saiva, I will talk to him when he wakes. Right now I don’t intend to kill him any more than I intend to kill you. Gydn though-“ he glances at the form on the berth with medidroids fluttering around beeping in deep concern “-if you lied and she is in control of herself I will have to punish her for endangering Hux. If you were telling the truth then… I don’t’ know. She cannot remain free to go after him again.”

“I understand,” the Knight says after a moment. There is a pause, Neiro examining him again. “I’d like to stay,” the Knight says after a while. “I don’t want to have to put this back on-” they kick the helmet so it rolls a little way across the floor and makes a medidroid beep in irritation “-or have to call myself ‘Neiro Ren’ anymore, but as to the rest of it I have no problems doing just as I have been doing.”

He looks from the helmet to Neiro, no, to _Narem,_ and back again. “Alright,” he says after a moment. “What about the others? Will they want to stop being Knights of Ren?” _Is it time to disband the Knights?_ if he does what will keep them together? Tie their loyalty to him?

A shrug. “I don’t think Gydn is capable of making such a decision anymore, Saiva won’t want to, but I suspect Xatjt will, I’m not sure about Jrii, and to be honest I don’t know that Rhadn still is a Knight of Ren anyway or if he’s off doing his own thing now.” 

He’s thinking about what to say to that when a soft noise catches his attention. A little groan. He turns to the sound, towards Saiva, just as the man launches himself upright and looks wildly around. The Knight’s gaze catches on Gydn, then Hux. “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” the man starts whimpering, followed shortly by “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He gets up to go to Saiva, but the Knight flinches back before launching himself off the berth to rush over to Gydn and try to shield her from him. “Please don’t,” Saiva whines. “Please. Please. She’s sorry. If she could be she’d be sorry.”

“I’m not going to-” he begins, but Neir- no, Narem, interrupts him.

“Calm down!” they snap. “We’ve talked it out. He understands.”

Saiva’s helmeted head swings wildly in the ex-Knight’s direction and then freezes. “Your helmet-” the man whispers.

“It’s ok,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. “Narem doesn’t want to wear it any more, you can take yours off too-”

_**“NO!”**_ the man shouts, hands going up to hold his helmet in place. “You can’t make me. No. Please no. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Narem mutters, pushing past him to go to Saiva. He watches, confused, as the ex-Knight makes soft shushing noises and mumbles on about how no one is going to take Saiva’s helmet off.

After a moment he sinks back into the seat by Hux’s berth and looks at the redhead. The monitors say the man’s still alive, but he barely seems to be breathing. Once more he reaches for the Force, for the Dark Side, but then stops himself. No. Not the Dark Side. 

A memory, a moment on the island comes across his mind, when he’d been trying to channel the Force into Hux to warm him up and for a split-second he’d been channeling the Force as a whole. He’d felt so much more powerful than he ever had before. Luke had made him channel the Light, Snoke had made him channel the Dark. Perhaps it is time to put aside the words of both his teachers.

He reaches for the Force as a whole, the Force entire, and lets it fill him. It feels good. Natural. More natural than either the Light or the Dark ever felt. He brushes the merest tendril against Hux’s mind and feels something catch. The tiniest presence. The tiniest acknowledgment. Before the tendril dissolves. Hux is still in there, somewhere deep down inside. 

He hears the door open. “Sir!” he looks up. Lieutenant Mitaka approaches, looking nervous.

“Lieutenant,” he acknowledges. He can read the man’s concern for Hux. The fear that the redhead is dead. The relief at reading his lifesigns on the monitor. 

“Lord Solo, Sir,” the man begins again. “We have just received a report. Savim is on the move.”

“To Ascension Base?” he asks, surprised. A glance at Hux, unconscious. This is not an ideal time. 

“No Sir,” the officer replies. He frowns at the man. “Based on the course trajectory we believe she is headed for Pas Bbenoea.”

“Pas Bbenoea?” He remembers Hux mentioning something about the planet just after they’d discovered the mutiny. Someone from there hadn’t responded or something. He can’t remember their name or their title.

“Yes,” the Lieutenant replies. “Where Marshall Pliadine is stationed. He fell behind Savim early on in the conflict.” _Marshall_ Pliadine. It could be a coincidence. Perhaps. 

“Pas Bbenoea is in the Outer Rim, isn’t it?” he asks, wracking his mind for information about the planet. It’s not one that comes up regularly. Peaceful, is how it has always been described. Peaceful and unambitious. From what he remembers it’s not near Ascension Base, but is almost as far from Arkanis in another direction as Mour’s fortress.

“Yes Sir,” Mitaka replies, a pause, and then, “General Hux did not share his plans with any of the Command Staff, but we were to report immediately if Savim made any kind of major move.”

“Very good Lieutenant,” another glance at the redhead. Still unconscious. This may be their only chance. _What would Hux do in this situation?_ “Set a course for the planet Arkanis.”


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not good at Yoda's speech patterns, I hope you will forgive me. As always I want to thank you all for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos.

_He has been walking through this desert for longer than he can conceive. When he started out the sand was white, like the sand of Maneshfva, then it became yellow, like the sand of Jakku, now it has softened again to a yellowish-cream. He is not hot. He should be hot, but he is not hot. He is dressed in simple robes of pale linen, even though he knows he does not own these garments._

_He has no memory of how he got here. There is fear, a lot of fear, if he tries to think back to the time before he was here, so he does not. He walks. He walks and walks and walks._

_…_

_Eventually something appears out of the heat haze of the horizon. A small shape. A shadow._

_He walks towards it._

_A figure. A woman. Small, tired and faded, facing away from him and staring out into the sands. As he approaches she gets clearer. Her hair is grey. Her face tanned, wrinkled, careworn._

_“I let them take my son,” she says as he comes to a stop beside her. “I thought I was giving him a better life.”_

_“Your son?” he asks. Confused._

_“This is where he was conceived,” the woman says. “I felt the desert call me. It promised me a child. A child who would one day live to be free.” She shakes her head “The only moment of freedom he knew were the moments before death. From when I birthed him to when his son freed him he lived his life a slave to one master or another.” Her eyes clench shut. “If I had kept him with me maybe I could have given him a better life, but instead I let the Jedi take him.”_

_“The Jedi-” he begins, the world swirls around him. Suddenly he’s standing on a balcony overlooking a flowing river. Around him he sees stone buildings, rounded copper roofs. In front of him, where the old woman once was, he sees a younger woman._

_She is beautiful, but her face is sad. Her dark hair is gathered up in an elaborate style, pinned with hundreds of tiny red flowers. She wears a gown of the same red, silk, edged in gold. “The Jedi failed him,” she says, her dark eyes fixed to his._

_“They never understood him, never took the time to understand him. Instead of adapting themselves, their methods, they _forced_ him to adapt. It was never going to work.”_

_“Who are you talking about?” he asks. He is even more confused than before._

_“My husband,” she replies. She turns away from him, leans against the balcony and gazes out over the water. “He fell to the Dark Side, and when he fell I felt it backlash across our bond. I had to protect the children. I could not let it contaminate them, hurt them. I wish it had not been that way, that I could have lived. I would have liked to see them grow up.” She sighs, sounding so very sad. “If I had lived perhaps I could have done something to save my son.”_

_The world swirls around him once more. Suddenly he’s inside, on a vessel past its prime. Things are grimy, a pale cream kind of colour. In front of him now stands a man. An older man. A familiar older man. It takes a moment but then he realizes it’s Han Solo._

_“I never really thought I could save my son,” the man says, expression rueful. “Even when I was standing on front of him, begging him to come with me, I knew he was lost. That we’d lost him.”_

_Those dark eyes, familiar in their way, fix his. “I’m starting to think maybe I was wrong. I can feel it, even in here I can feel it. He’s turning from the Dark Side. I’ve got you to thank for that,” a laugh “Leia would never believe me. Turns out you’re a good kid.”_

_The scene swirls again. Suddenly he’s back on the island, in the clearing with the tree. It is not the remains, the burn out husk it was when they were there. Right now it stands tall, strong and healthy, in full leaf. In front of him a small being stands, green and wrinkled, leaning on a stick._

_“Taken you as a child we would have,” the being says. “When whole the temple was. A Jedi you would have made.”_

_“I’m sorry?” he frowns. He knows who this is, or at least he thinks he does. His father once said something about a ‘green gremlin’ who was one of the main Jedi of the Republic._

_“The Force you have,” the being says. “Realize it you do not. Hidden from you it has been. By Snoke.”_

_“The Force?” he frowns. “I don’t have the Force. Ben has the Force.”_

_The being nods. “Young Solo has it also. Strong he is. Powerful. Something else you are.”_

_“I don’t understand,” he has no idea what is going on. This doesn’t seem real. Perhaps he is dreaming._

_“Your full potential by us wasted it would have been,” the being adds, with a sense of finality. “Channel the whole Force by instinct most children do, before taught to channel only the Light they are. Knew this we did, so take them young we did. Take them too old and bad habits, permanent they became. Anakin Skywalker came to us too old, taught properly to channel only the Light and not the whole Force he could not be. Feared this we did. Failed him we did.”_

_“Why?” he asks. “Why do they have to be taught so young? What happens if you let them channel the whole Force?”_

_“Fall to the Dark Side they might,” the being answers. “Easier to remove temptation it is, than to teach properly how to resist it.”_

_“Like Ben fell,” he says, more to himself than the being._

_The being makes a humming noise. “Permanent that may not be. Before now believed it I would not.”_

_The world begins to swirl around him again. The being strikes the ground with his stick. The swirling stops. He is still in the clearing, the being still stands before him. “Ready for you to leave I am not,” the being says. “Told you what you must know I have not yet. Told you, I did, of children channeling the whole Force, but told you I have not of those that are born who channel only the Light or the Dark. Often this is not. One such you are. Channel the Light you do. In war there is no place for one such as you. Thrive in the Order you would have not, as a Jedi overlooked you would have been, wasted your strength would have been. Outside the Order reach your full potential you might. Limited were our ways, see this I now do.”_

_“The Light Side?” he frowns. “It doesn’t make sense, if most children are born to channel the whole Force then why is there a Dark Side, a Light Side?”_

_“Understand this we do not-” The world swirls, the being taps the ground, but the swirling continues._

_Suddenly he is home. He knows that smell, the feel of that wind against his face. He is down on the rocky shore of the Estuary, near the cliffs at summer’s low tide, one of the few times of the year it can go days without raining, and before him stands-_

_“The Jedi have never understood,” his grandmother says. “They see the waters as the Light, as the Dark. How can this be? The waters are the waters. It is the conduit that shades them.” She is older now than she was the last time he saw her. Her hair, once rich red striped in silver, is now pure white. It is long and straight, and hangs around a thin face lined in wrinkles._

_“Grandmother?” he breathes out._

_A smile cracks her weathered face, shining with years upon years of Arkanisian tan. “Look at you my little seal pup, how you’ve grown,” she looks him up and down, her hands held out towards him. “Ah, and strong too. I knew you would be strong from the moment Niwuë birthed you.” He steps forward, hesitantly. One hand closes on his shoulder, the other cups the side of his face “The waters gave you to us, you were to take my place, but then that Dryland Imperial stole you from us along with your mother.”_

_“He killed her,” he whispers. Shame fills him. Brendol was his father. His blood is Brendol’s blood._

_“I know pup,” she says, brushing a strand of his hair back. “She has returned to the waters.” She steps back, releasing him, “It is time for you to return home. You will come to me now, when the tides are low at mid-summer, and I will show you the hidden way from the cliffs into your father’s temple of war. You must end it pup, this fool’s war. The real one is coming.”_

_“I don’t-” he begins, and then feels very tired of not understanding things. “What war?” he asks._

_The world swirls around him. “It is not a matter of Light or Dark, you must remember that,” she cries out as she fades “Your nature they would call Light, and see it for only part of what it is. Do not let them make you live a half-life. Do not let them make the man, his girl, live a half-life. The ones who believe so strongly, feel that the waters can be split, that one ‘side’ can exist without the other, they are the ones-”_

_She is gone. **“Armitage,” that voice. The swirling stops. He is still by the shore, still by the cliffs.**_

_**“Mother,” he whispers. She smiles at him, her skin glowing in the light. She looks young, healthy, free in a way he only ever saw when she was away from his father. He hesitates, wants to reach out for her, but he’s afraid she’ll evaporate if he touches her.** _

_**She obviously feels no such fear because she steps forward and pulls him into her arms. She’s warm. She smells like he remembers, the smell underneath that of the kitchens. Like the sea, like warm sand. “My dear little one,” she says softly against the skin of his neck.** _

_**“Mother,” he whimpers, arms going around her, clutching her tight.** _

_**“I’m so sorry I had to leave you,” she says. “I never wanted to.”** _

_**“He killed you,” he bites out. Her red-blonde hair begins to stick to his face. He’s crying.** _

_**“He took you from me,” she says. “He took us from our home, our people, our ways, but you can go back now. The waters are waiting for you. Can’t you feel them?”** _

_**He can. He can feel the waves. They beat inside his chest where his heart should lay.** _

_**“I don’t want to,” he whispers, “I don’t want to leave you.”** _

_**“You have to,” she replies, finally pulling away from him. He can see tears on her cheeks too. She lifts one pale hand, glowing with Arkanisian tan, and smooths his hair back behind his ear. “I’m already gone. You are needed. Oh my sweet boy, you are needed so badly.”** _

_**“I’m not,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t think I can keep going on.”** _

_**“You are,” she insists. “You must. So much is at stake. It will not be all bad. It does not have to be as you fear. He loves you, you know, that Ben. The kind of love that is not like your father’s love. His is a rare thing. A love that can change a man.”** _

_**He doesn’t know what he wants to deal with first, so what he ends up saying is “Brendol is dead.”** _

_**“I know,” she says. There is a look on her face, not quite satisfaction, not quite relief. “I felt him die. He did not regret his death. He welcomed it.”** _

_**“I don’t understand,” he says. Perhaps she just means that the man welcomed a release from the Force Lightning. “Why?”** _

_**“Because he had killed me,” she says, simply. “Because he had loved me and taken the thing he loved from himself.”** _

_**No. No! “The way he treated you, the things he did, that was not love,” he insists.** _

_**“Oh but it was,” a bitter smile, her arms wrap around her waist. “That is the only way some people are capable of love. People like your father, like that man, that Snoke. He loved you.” The words shatter through him. He shakes his head, tries to deny it, but she’s still speaking. “The same kind of killing love that Brendol had for me. The way that Ben loves you is different, that is why I told you. If I thought he would treat you as as Brendol treated me, as Snoke treated you, I would have hidden it from you. I would have let you stay with me. I would have done anything to keep you safe from it.”** _

_**“I-” he begins. “No. No,” he’s shaking his head. “He didn’t. Snoke. He didn’t love me.”** _

_**She reaches out, takes a hold of his upper arms, looks deep into his face. “Just because someone like that loves you doesn’t make it a good thing. It doesn’t make it a thing you welcome, a thing you bring on yourself. It doesn’t make it a thing you have to return.”** _

_**“I can’t-” he begins. The world starts swirling again.** _

_**“No!” she says, looking away from him, up at the sky. “You will give me a moment more with my son!” The swirling eases. She meets his eyes again. “We do not have long, so the most important thing first. I love you my dear little one. I loved you from the moment you were put into my arms and I will love you long beyond when we have both joined the waters. You were the only good thing that ever came from Brendol Hux.”** _

_**“I love you too,” he manages. He’s really crying now. He can feel the moment they separate, the moment she’s taken from him once more. It is getting closer.** _

_**“You will be strong,” she tells him. “Because you are strong, you are stronger than you know. If only I could have lived to see-”** _

_**The world swirls around him, again. “I love you,” he shouts. “Mother. I love you.”** _

_**“I love you too,” he hears, the faintest whisper.** _

_He is in a room. A room he has been in before. There are huge windows looking out onto a jungle, a domed roof up above. A man stands before him and for a moment he wants to hit him, strike out, scream for the loss of his mother. He doesn’t._

_The man is old, tired, familiar. Luke Skywalker. A blink and a memory unrolls behind his eyes, the last time he was in this room in that dream. The vision of the figures and their endless war. Luke Skywalker a young man._

_“The Dark Side, the Light Side, the War. Oh I knew, I knew, but I didn’t see this coming,” the man says. He sounds as tired as he looks. “I should have, but I didn’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”_

_He doesn’t bother asking, just waits for the man to keep speaking. “Ben’s grown fond of you, I’m glad. You’ll both need some comfort in the coming days. Can I ask you to do something for me?”_

_He thinks about it for a moment, then nods. “Yes.”_

_“Can you tell him-” the man hesitates, but then continues. “When you get the chance, when it seems the right time, can you tell him that Snoke got to me too. Whispered across my mind. Increased my fears. I didn’t realize it until after I joined the Force. It doesn’t excuse what I did and I’m not asking for him to forgive me, I still did it, I still made that choice in that moment, I just want him to know how much of what happened, the bad things, were down to that man. I just want him to stay free.”_

_He is not sure what Skywalker is talking about. He has never asked Ben why he left his uncle’s temple. Still, after a moment’s thought, he answers “OK.”_

_“I’m proud of him,” Skywalker adds, “Or at least if he continues the way he’s going I’ll be proud of him. I gave up on him and I shouldn’t have. Tell him that too, if you can.”_

_He nods. “Is that all you want me to tell him?”_

_The man shakes his head. “There’s a million more things, but we don’t have the time. I have to show you something.”_

_“What?” he asks._

_Everything goes dark. Then, speck by speck, tiny little lights begin to glow around him. The shape is familiar, not suns and worlds, but specks picking out suns and worlds. The galaxy. ”Life” Skywalker’s voice whispers across his mind. ”Sapient, sentient, complex, simple. Life. Where there’s life, there’s Light.”_

_A blink. Some of the specks start going out, then more. More. More. A wave of Darkness, originating from somewhere in what looks like the Outer Rim. He can feel it. Cold beyond cold. Dark beyond Dark. Annihilation, absolute. “Death,” Skywalker’s voice says, fading to nothing “No. Something beyond death.”_

_Panic. A spasm of movement. He reaches out, tries to do something, anything, to stop the death._

_A flicker. An image. Behind his eyes. Inside his head. Filling everything._

_**A Knight dressed in white, standing in the heart of the Darkness, and in their hands a lightsaber with a pure black blade. The hilt familiar. The hilt the same as Skywalker’s. The one that went missing from his rooms.** _

_A blink. He is not back in the domed room. Skywalker is gone. A blink._

_He is in a corridor. He knows this corridor. His feet start walking before he realizes._

_It’s dark, only the emergency lights are on, sending an eerie, pale blueish glow across everything._

_The walls are plain, newly repainted. The floor still scuffed from hundreds of boots walking it day in and day out._

_He can hear something. Up ahead. The soft sound of someone crying quietly._

_He wonders if it’s himself. If he’ll find himself here. A child dragged by Brendol._

_He follows the sound. Part of him wants to turn and run, but there’s no use in running. This place comes with him, in his nightmares._

_It’s down the next corridor. He hesitates. He can hear the crying more clearly now. A deep breath, he walks on._

_The Stage One Reconditioning Pods begin to appear from the gloom, the light flickering on their curved surfaces. Most of them are open, dark, quiet, but the one up ahead. The one Brendol always dragged him into. That door is shut._

_He hesitates outside it, hand raised to trigger the opening mechanism. The person inside is still crying. He opens it._

_A woman is crouched on the floor of the pod, illuminated by its artificial white glow. Pale skinned, blonde hair, and when she looks up at him he can see she has very blue eyes._

_“I’m sorry Sir,” she says, voice choked by tears. Phasma. “I didn’t understand what it was like. I’m sorry Sir.”_

_He reaches down, takes her hand in his, and begins to lift her out of her crouch and out of the pod._

He wakes, slowly. He’s on a berth. A soft berth. Someone is holding his hand. ”Ben?” he asks, bleary eyes blinking open.

“Hux,” the man says. Relief evident in his voice, and then “You have the Force. I didn’t see it, but you have the Force.”

He blinks, the man begins to come into focus. _He loves you, you know, that Ben,_ his mother’s voice rings across his mind. He feels himself blush. He could pull his hand away, but instead he finds himself tightening his grasp on the man’s fingers. “I… Yes. Yes, I think you are right,” he says. “I saw things… What happened?”

He remembers the hunger, the cold, the thing latched onto him, then he remembers the dark place. The girl, begging for help. 

The man darts a glance over his shoulder. He follows the line of sight, sees a figure slumped in the nearby berth, hooked up to a mass of medical equipment. “Gydn attacked you,” Ben replies. “Though from what Neir-, **Narem,** has said it wasn’t because she wanted to. Snoke did something to her that makes her-” the man’s head tilts to the side while he thinks for a moment “ **-hungry** for the Light Side. You defended yourself with the Force when she attacked you, which knocked her out.”

“Oh,” he says, not sure what to say to that. 

He doesn’t get a chance to say anything else because Ben says “We’ll have to talk about it later. While you were unconscious Savim moved, we think she’s heading for Pas Bbenoea. We’re almost at Arkanis. Will you be strong enough for the mission?”

“Yes,” he says, even though he’s not sure. He remembers his grandmother’s, his mother’s, words from the dream, the vision, whatever it was. He’s sure it was real, or at least as real as something like that can be. He remembers the last part. What Skywalker showed him. Then he remembers the nightmares he’s had since Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. His grandmother said he needed to end this war first. “Yes. I know how we can take the base.”

He’ll talk to Ben properly once this war is done.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only a couple of chapters and an epilogue left after this one, then all of this part of the series will have been posted. I still haven't written any more, and I still don't know if I will, but you all have been the best of readers. Once more I would like to thank you for reading, leaving kudos and comments. I hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

The seas of Arkanis fill the porthole of the shuttle. They are pale, a pure blue-green, underneath a clear sky dusted with fluffy clouds. Hux sits beside him, closest to the window, staring intently out as the vessel circles round to head down to the grey cliffs at the sea’s edge, a few kilometres from the SCC. They are taking a small, camouflaged shuttle down to the shore near the Estuary, where Hux’s mother’s people come from. Their team is small, himself, Hux, Lieutenant Mitaka, FN-2188 and her squad. People that they, that he and Hux, trust from experience. The Stormtroopers sit row on row a little behind them, just out of earshot. Mitaka is piloting once more, FN-2439 as co-pilot.

Captain Phasma will be leading a diversion outside the base. She woke shortly after Hux did. The two of them had gone off together for fifteen minutes of intense conversation before they’d returned and Hux had outlined his plan. He could barely stand looking at the Captain. Awake, moving about, she had made him think of his grandfather. He found it a bit unnerving.

There is a secret way into the Base. They will take a small team and infiltrate it, making their way to its heart, where they will issue ‘Order 66’ and reset the Stormtrooper’s loyalty to them. All the while attention will be drawn away from the heart of the complex by Phasma, two squads of Stormtroopers and a company of Droids. They will engage in a mock raid, the pretence being that they have come to take weapons and trainee Stormtroopers to swell their ranks. Both teams will set their weapons to stun, not kill, as the goal is to ensure as little loss of life as possible amongst the Stormtroopers that will be theirs once they take the Base. 

He has been forced to leave his Knights and Narem on the fleet; Gydn is still unconscious, Saiva is more than half hysterical, which leaves Narem as the closest thing to a voice of reason and a way to control them. It is not ideal. He will have to deal with it when this mission is over. 

_Hux has the Force._ It is strange to think of. He hadn’t seen it, even though it had been right under his nose. _Lightsider,_ that’s what the Knights had called him. He remembers the part in Snoke’s note about how amusing Starkiller was, but that it might have been a mistake. Even if Hux was cut off from the Force he must have felt some backlash from that massive loss of life, loss of life that was partially on his own hands, even if only because of what Snoke had done to him. It must have been terrible. It’s a miracle Hux survived it. 

“Sir,” he looks over at Hux, the redhead meets his gaze. “No, _Ben._ I was going to wait, but I need to ask you this now. Did you take Skywalker’s Lightsabre from my rooms while I was on Maneshfva?”

He frowns. _Luke’s Lightsabre?_ The green blade, the one they had discovered in the clearing. He had forgotten all about it. He has no idea how he forgot all about it. “No.”

Hux nods. “It’s missing,” the redhead says after a pause. “I am afraid it has fallen into enemy hands.”

“Enemy-” he begins. “I don’t understand. How is it missing? When did it go missing?”

“I thought you took it,” Hux answers, apologetic. “Then things kept happening and I never got around to asking you.”

Irritation rises in him, but he squashes it down. He can imagine all the things, remember all the things, that might have gotten in the way. They have been very busy and he has not always been kind to the man, not always given him the capacity to approach him with his concerns. “What makes you think it has fallen into enemy hands?”

“I had-” Hux screws his face up “-I think I had a vision, when I was unconscious. I saw a lot of things, a lot of people really. One of them was your Uncle. He showed me something at the heart of destruction, a Knight dressed in white, with a Lightsabre with a black blade. The hilt was the same as Skywalker’s.”

_A Knight-_ Suspicion comes over him. Could it be Rhadn? How would Rhadn have gotten Luke’s Lightsabre? He reaches over his link with Narem. 

“Yes my Lord,” the ex-Knight answers.

“Do you know anything of my uncle’s Lightsabre? It was stolen from Hux’s rooms.” 

A long pause.  “No my Lord, I asked Saiva and he doesn’t know either. It could have been Gydn, do you want me to check her rooms?”

“Do so,” he orders, and then, thinking about it a bit more “-please. Tell me at once if you discover it.”

”Will do,” the ex-Knight replies, breaking the connection.

“I’ve asked Narem to check Gydn’s rooms,” he tells the redhead. “Neither they nor Saiva knew anything about it.”

“Narem?” Hux asks. “That’s Neiro Ren, isn’t it?”

“Narem is their birthname,” he replies. “They no longer want to be a Knight of Ren. I can’t blame them, now that I know what Snoke did to them all.”

“He was cruel to them?” Hux asks.

“More than cruel,” he replies. “From what I understand, though I’m not sure I understand all of it yet.”

“He was a cruel man,” Hux says, quietly, then “If Narem is no longer a Knight of Ren, what about the rest of them?”

“I don’t know. I suppose we’ll find out in the coming days.” He feels very tired. Sad. Instinctively he reaches out, tangles his fingers with Hux’s. “What does this make me, when we’re done? We cannot be the First Order. I cannot be the Supreme Leader. I will not be Snoke.”

Hux squeezes his hand. “What do you want to be?”

“Liberator,” he says without thinking. “I want to make the Galaxy free. Free from Snoke. Free from the New Republic. Free from the corruption of it all.”

“Do you still want to rule it?” the redhead asks, voice quiet, intimate in the space between them. 

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “I suppose I must. If I don’t someone else will rise up, someone like Savim, or Snoke, or the Emperor of old.”

Hux makes a humming noise. “There’s one more thing I want to discuss with you,” the redhead says, sneaking a glance out the window. “In the minutes before we land. I have compiled a list of our Stormtroopers, when we reset the loyalty of the others and issue ‘Order 66’ I do not want ours involved. They have proved their loyalty, I do not want-” a pause, Hux takes a deep breath “I can’t rewrite their minds. I can’t take away their autonomy like that. If Savim, the High Council, weren’t such a threat…” Hux breaks off. He gets the picture. If they did not need to destroy their enemies Hux would not want to even use the failsafes his father built in to the training program. He understands. The merest thought of Snoke, what Snoke did, and he can’t argue.

“What about the Conditioning program? The Reconditioning program?” he asks. Once they take the SCC they will have access to all of its technology.

“I don’t want to do it anymore,” Hux says, averting his eyes, starting to pull his hand away. He tightens his grip. A sad, wavering little smile comes across the redhead’s face. “I can’t undo what my father did, what I did, but I don’t want to continue it. I don’t want it to be part of what we are, what we stand for. It’s a form of slavery.”

One that had been inflicted on Hux himself. “I understand,” he says, looking down at those thin, leather gloved fingers clenched in his. He thinks of Hux, a child, his mind controlled and twisted first by his father, then by Snoke, a man who forced him into his bed against his will. He thinks of the Knights, of Narem’s contained anger, Saiva’s fear, the mess that Gydn has become, Xatjt’s secret life to keep her wife safe. He thinks of himself. His childhood. Snoke’s voice whispering in his ear. “I agree.” He takes a deep breath “What will happen after we issue ‘Order 66’?”

Hux thinks for a moment. “Once the High Council, Savim and Mour are dead we should offer amnesty to any of the other members of the Command who want to fall in line behind us. Most will, I think, they are cowards at the end of the day. We will kill anyone who doesn’t. Then we should stop using my father’s technology to control the Stormtroopers. I believe most of them will transfer their loyalty to us. It is what they’ve been trained to do, after all, and that training will live on even without Reconditioning. We should not pursue those that don’t unless they become a risk. We should also stop the Reconditioning program full stop, and treat them like we would treat a real army. Treat them as people. Give them a place with us, an income, a life, a future. Treat them as if their loyalty is something of value to us.” Those sea coloured eyes fix his. “We need them. It is foolish, arrogant, to act as if it is otherwise. If you do not want to be a man like Snoke then be strong enough to acknowledge them.”

_Strong enough,_ a strange way to put it. Strong enough to acknowledge those he needs. He squeezes Hux’s hand. For a moment the desire to confess his feeling comes over him again, but the shuttle is coming down to land. 

It stops on the rocky shore by the cliffs. Hux stands before he does, their hands still entangled. For a moment the redhead looks down at him, an unreadable expression in his pale eyes. Hux squeezes his fingers. “Come on,” the man says. “There’s someone I would like you to meet.” 

“Move her if the tide comes in before we’re back,” Hux calls over his shoulder to FN-2404, left behind to guard the shuttle. They all pile out of the vessel after the redhead, his long, thin legs eating up the space down the ramp and onto the shore. Their feet hit the sand. A moment. Hux looks around, the wind blowing his copper hair free to swirl around his eyes, and then a smile. The most beautiful smile he has ever seen. “Grandmother!” the man cries out.

A tiny figure, paler than the white sand between the rocks, starts picking its way towards them from near one of the cliffs. She was tall once, but now her back is stooped. She’s thin, almost as thin as Gydn, though nowhere as unhealthy looking. Her long hair, the purest white he thinks he has ever seen, blows loose in the wind. She is wearing a tunic of homespun cloth, loose trousers of thicker material and brown, knee high boots. Under the sun her skin glows, the same pearlescent as Hux’s freckles, but a uniform sheen in place of little blotches. 

“Seal pup!” she cries out, laughter in her oddly accented voice. “Oh I knew the waters did not lie. You have come _home._ ” 

As she gets closer he can see how ancient she is. Her face, like enough to Hux’s that he could pick their connection even without being told, is lined and weathered. Her pale eyes a little milky. Her gaze is still sharp though, it pins him as she pulls Hux into her arms. Hux’s arms go up to encircle her, and he presses his face against her neck. She makes shushing noises, pets the redhead softly. All the while she watches him. 

He can feel the Force glowing off her, as if she was made of the stuff. She does not feel as strong as himself, or Rey, or Luke, or Hux, but she does feel _strong_. Strong enough that she would have once made a Jedi. Oddly it does not feel like the Light Side or the Dark Side. The feel he gets from her is the feel of the whole Force. It feels good, even brushing against it from someone else. 

Hux’s grandmother. He suddenly feels horribly self-conscious. Without thought he finds himself standing straighter, trying to look more respectable. _What if she doesn’t like him?_

“Oh my sweet boy,” she says softly to the redhead after a while. “Come. Introduce me to your crow. A frightful one he is, from the look of him.”

Hux pulls away, wipes at his face. He tries not to stare, to make it known that he knows Hux has been crying. The redhead turns around, gestures at him. The Stormtroopers and Mitaka watch from a respectful distance off. “This is Ben,” Hux says. “Ben Solo. He is our leader.”

“Is he now?” the old woman asks, peering at him. “Come pup, don’t lie to me. I see what he is. Lost your way did you my boy?” she asks, walking over to him to peer up into his face. He stares down at her. “Oh, you did. Pity that. ‘Tis fixable though, and I can see you’re on your way to mending it. You’ll take care of my boy, won’t you?”

“I will,” he answers. This time he means it. No harm will come to Hux if he can help it. He hopes she believes him. 

“Such a serious young man,” she says with a laugh. “Oh, I like him pup. I can tell now he’s not the one that put those shadows in your eyes.” She narrows her eyes, peers closely at his face. “Ah. The same man put shadows in your eyes too, I see them. Different shadows, but shadows still. Men like that are wicked things.”

_They are._ Inside his head he promises himself, Hux, her, that he will not be such a man. She smiles at him, a thousand papery wrinkles crinkling the corners of her eyes and mouth. 

“No, it wasn’t him,” he hears Hux say, voice soft. 

“Come!” she declares. “We do not have much time before the tide rises again. I will take you part of the way but only part. I can go no further. I do not have much time.”

“What do you mean?” Hux asks.

“Oh pup, can’t you tell?” the woman asks, then sighs “Of course not, after all I didn’t have the teaching of you as I should have. I am only here a little while, then the waters will call me back.”

A suspicion. The way she feels in the Force. “You’re a Force ghost,” he says. 

“Clever crow,” the woman laughs. “That is how your kind would put it.”

“A Force ghost?” Hux asks, paling. “You are dead? How long?”

“A couple of years now pup,” she says with a sigh. “I held out as long as I could. With me went the last Dtháa Afàër. The Kinfolk are dead now, our culture gone.” She reaches out, takes Hux’s hand in hers “Do not fret pup. I am with the waters now, with my Niwuë and all that went before.”

Hux is shaking his head, tears welling up, his hand squeezing hers desperately. 

“I have not heard of Force ghosts appearing so vividly people can actually touch them,” he says, examining her. Not even Luke could manage that. She really does seem to stand before them, flesh and bone. He looks at her hand clenched in the redhead’s. It is amazing. 

“It is all in the knowing how,” she replies, lifting the redhead’s hand to press a kiss to his knuckles. “Come pup, all will be well. I got to see you one last time, and you me. I got to meet your crow, to get a sense of him. I get to show you the way into the heart of the canker your father built upon our land, so the galaxy can finally be free of it. We will meet again, when all this is done, as all do who return to the waters.”

Hux raises his other hand to his face, desperately wiping away his tears. “I’m sorry,” the redhead says, voice quiet. “I’m making a fool of myself.” He wants to go to the redhead, to hold him, comfort him somehow. He doesn’t know if Hux would welcome it.

“Don’t be sorry pup,” the woman says. “Only a fool is ashamed of the fact their heart’s been broken. You were always a good boy, a sweet boy. No shame in sweetness. You would have made a good Dtháa Afàër.”

“What is a-?” he begins, trying to remember the words.

“A Dtháa Afàër?” she asks. “Your kind would think of us as the head, or chief, Force user of our people.”

“And Hux was supposed to be one?” he asks, curious. Eying the redhead. Hux does feel quite powerful in the Force, though not as strong as he or Rey. 

“Aye,” she says, nodding. “When his father took him from us that seemed to sound our death knell. No more Afàr, Force users, were born from that day.”

“I’m sorry,” Hux whispers. Guilt seems to radiate off him.

“Not your fault pup,” she says, smiling at the redhead. “Never be sorry for a thing you did not do but was done _to_ you. Come, we should hurry. As much as I would love to spend my time in talking to you, I only have so much of it and we must get to the business at hand.”

“Where are we going?” he finds himself asking.

“Oh, up into the cliff,” she says as if it was obvious. “Can’t you feel the path? A man such as you, you really should be reaching out, getting a better sense of your surrounds.”

For a moment he feels annoyed by her tone, but bites it down. She is dead, she is a Force ghost, she is Hux’s grandmother. She deserves his respect. Doing as she suggested he reached for the Force, the whole Force, glorying for just a moment in how good it feels, and uses it to sense into the cliff. He feels it, what she means, the space, the path up and across beneath the land, heading to where he can feel more lives, scurrying. The SCC.

“Lead the way,” he says.

The old woman nods, starts towards the cliff. She is light on her feet, fast, even though age has curved her back and made her limbs move stiffly. He wonders if her speed is because of what she is, and why, considering what she is, she still moves like an old woman. Hux follows behind her immediately, eyes fixed to her form. He follows the redhead. Mitaka and the Stormtroopers follow after. 

The rocks are sharp, slippery in placed with water weed and moss, they shift and skitter treacherously under foot. He finds himself reaching for the Force, using it to help him find his way. Hux never stumbles, neither does the old woman, but behind his he hears swearing and things skittering. A man’s voice saying “Frak, you alright there mate?”

“Don’t help,” FN-2439’s voice says. “Fuck, 1996, I said don’t help him. You’re not helping. Give me your hand 1899.”

Some more skittering, and then it sounds like everything’s been sorted out. “Thank you,” he hears a man say, if he’s right the surviving Stormtrooper from the squad that died at Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. 

“Pick up the pace,” he orders, they’re in danger of falling behind Hux and his grandmother. 

At the base of the cliff the woman begins to climb a set of very narrow stairs, cut into the cliff face. Their surface is smooth, slippery with patches of green moss, or possibly fine seaweed. The rocks are dark with water. He suspects that when the tide is in where they are walking is well and truly submerged. 

Hux climbs just ahead of him, the redhead’s feet sure on the slippery rock. He needs the Force to keep his own footing, but behind him the Stormtroopers and Mitaka are not so lucky. He can feel them falter, some of them almost slipping. Once he would have left them to it, been irritated more than anything if one of them fell, but he remembers what Hux said about needing them. He draws deeper on the Force and wraps it around them, all of them, using it to keep them from falling even if they slip. Things progress quickly after that. 

They climb for almost half an hour before the old woman leads them onto a ledge in front of the path he sensed through the rock. He sees it now, a fine shape, a dark crevice into the cliff. “This is the place,” the old woman says. “’Tis a simple path, straight ahead, no turnings. The waters are not telling me you won’t succeed, but if the thing does not come to pass it is worth remembering that you’ll not be coming back this way. By the time what you’ve come for has been won or lost the tide it will be up too high. “

“I know,” Hux says, voice soft, agonized. “Thank you, Grandmother.”

“Oh don’t be thanking me, pup,” the old woman says, turning to the redhead with a pained look on her face. “I’m leading you back to your nightmares. I know what was done to you in this place.”

“That is past,” Hux says. “It will not happen again.”

_No,_ he swears to himself. _It will not._

“Ah,” the Force ghost sighs. “If only ‘twere not done in the first place. Ah, a life is a thing made of regrets.” She shakes off the momentary melancholy. “Come here pup,” she calls to Hux, opening her arms. “Let me hold you one last time.”

Hux eases forward into her arms, wrapping his own tight around her. They say nothing. He can see Hux’s trembling. Behind them Mitaka and the Stormtroopers look away, respectful. A quick skim of their mind shows confusion, but sorrow for the redhead, no contempt for his perceived weakness. That is good. He would have to correct them if it was otherwise. 

Eventually the embrace ends. The old woman approaches him, holds out her hand. “Good to meet you crow,” she says as he reaches to shake the appendage. 

Contact. _It goes dark. The light returns, he is in a small stone house, with a roof of some kind rushes. In the centre there is a fire, the smoke rising to filter out through the roofing material. He is sitting, facing the fire. Opposite him sits Hux’s grandmother. “My name is Dehúin,” she says._

_“What is this?!” he demands._

_“I wish to talk to you, talk where we won’t be overheard, before I leave. Don’t worry, the others will not be able to perceive this moment, not even my grandson will see more than a second pass.”_

_“Why?!” he snaps. He can feel anger rising in him. He does not like to be at her mercy, at anyone’s mercy. He reminds himself who she is, forces the rage down._

_“Quite some temper you have,” she says, stirring something in an iron tripod pot over the fire. He flinches. “You are learning not to let it lead you. That is a good thing. If I thought that temper would one day master you, with no hope of things being the other way around, I would sever the wellspring of your life right now.” He feels a clench, a snare tighten around something deep inside, deeper than his consciousness, deeper than his connection to the Force. For a moment everything goes black. He ceases to exist. Then the snare loosens. He gasps in a breath._

_“What did you do?” that felt different to anything he’s experienced before. Even Snoke could not reach that deep inside, grasp so closely to the root of life._

_“Gave you a warning child,” the old woman says, lifting the wooden spoon to her lips and tasting whatever is in the pot. It smells of the sea, of fish and seaweed, and something else. Strange herbs. It is strangely vivid for something he knows is not real. “You will not be as Brendol Hux was to Niwuë, as that man of shadows was to my grandson. You will treat him well, because if I think for one moment that you’ll not you’ll not be leaving this place alive.”_

_“I am not Snoke,” he snaps, for what feels like the millionth time since he killed the man. “I am not Brendol Hux. I admit that I’ve hurt him in the past, but never again.”_

_“Oh, you will hurt him. We all hurt the ones we love,” she says, simply, continuing before his offense at the idea can make him snap at her, “It’s not the little hurts I worry for, it’s the big ones. The killing hurts.” A pause, then “Do you know what he is?”_

_“Do you mean do I know he can use the Force?” he asks. ”You know I do.”_

_“Not that,” she dismisses. “Your kind would call him a Lightsider, but we never saw it like that, like a binary system. Our kind, our Afàr always worked together, no matter their nature, no matter the way they channelled the Force. Your Jedi always saw themselves as channelling only the Light, the Sith only the Dark, but unless that is the way you are born it is not natural. It is something artificial, imposed from without. We would call it a half-life. It can make an Afàr go mad, especially channelling only the Dark when they are built to channel so much more. The Dark, artificially filtered, is a very dangerous thing. Too easily can it be pushed past the boundaries of nature, its role in the cycle. Too easily can it become only destruction, without rebirth.” He thinks about what she said. Thinks about Snoke. Thinks about himself when he channels only the Dark. She may have a point._

_She continues “The way my kind have always seen it is that most of the Afàr are like you and me, when we channel the waters we channel all of them, so-called Light and Dark, creation and destruction, renewal and decay, but some Afàr are born different, born with-” she puts the spoon down and frowns, rolling a hand round and round in the air as she searches for the right words “-I suppose you could say _filters_ , inside of them. Your kind say they are natural channellers of the Dark Side or the Light Side. He is like that, my grandson. He filters out the Dark and channels the Light. It is rare, it gives him capacities that you and I, or an Afàr taught only to channel the Light, will never have, but it also makes him vulnerable. He is not made for war, for senseless killing, for causing pain.” It agrees with what he’s heard of Lightsiders, though the person he heard it from was Snoke, and what the man had said had bene tainted with contempt. Natural Lightsiders are weak. They fear blood. They have no place in war. Yet Snoke had dragged Hux into the middle of the war and soaked his hands in blood. Cruel. Monstrously cruel._

_She fixes him with her pale gaze, “This is what I want to warn you about. This is what I want, desperately, for you to hear. Please keep him safe from it, as much as you can, because there’s always going to be only so much he can take before it breaks him.”_

_“I understand,” he says, quietly. He does. He doesn’t know what it will mean in the long run, but perhaps if they can find peace soon, can end the war without too much more bloodshed, things might be ok. Hux might be ok. He thinks Hux will like peace, will like the chance to see the Galaxy thriving once more. He’ll make sure it happens. He won’t be Snoke, the Emperor of old, an oppressor._

_“Good man,” she says, a smile, more hopeful that assured, cracking her old face._

A blink. They’re back on the outcrop, in front of the tunnel. Her hand is in his. “Good man,” she repeats, her eyes knowing. 

She turns once more to Hux. “I will see you again pup,” she promises, “On the day you return to the waters. Until then know that I love you, that your mother loves you, that we are proud of you.”

“I love you both too,” Hux says, voice quiet but unashamed. 

The old woman nods, tears coming to her own pale eyes. Then pop. She vanishes.

The Stormtroopers and Mitaka suck in a gasp, he feels one of them, FN-2091, get too close to the edge of the outcrop and drags her back with the Force. She pants. Stands stunned. Gratitude creeps across their minds. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get this done.”

Hux nods, not speaking, tears still welling up in his eyes. The two of them step towards the crevice. From the corner of his eye he sees the Stormtroopers move their helmeted heads as if exchanging a glance, then they all bunch in close, Mitaka sandwiched between FN-2188 and FN-2439. He can feel their apprehension. The crevice in the cliff looks very dark, very strange, to them. They are not sure they’re not just being led to their deaths. It is only their faith in Hux that lends them any assurance.

Side by side he and Hux pass into the dark hole in the cliff wall, the Stormtroopers and Mitaka following a moment after. It is dark inside, pitch black, but only for a moment. The Stormtroopers activate the lights in their helmets and suddenly a narrow, dark, wet passage of rock dripping salt water opens up before them. A glance at Hux, a wavering smile from the redhead, and they move forward.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting in a rush again. Mondays, sigh. Still, thank you all for being a wonderful group of readers. Thanks for reading, leaving comments and kudos.

Phasma had understood. Whatever had happened to her in his vision, and he still doesn’t know how he had dragged in in to it, had showed her what Reconditioning is, had made her understand why it needs to be stopped. If he has the Force, like his vision suggested, like Ben had said when he’d woken up, like some new instinct tells him he does, then he’s afraid that he might have used in unconsciously to make her see his point. He’d been so afraid of what she’d think, what she’d do. Maybe that fear had guided him as he’d lost consciousness, as his Force powers, of however he should put it, had broken free. 

She had volunteered to lead the diversion. Her voice had been strong, adamant. In those few minutes they’d had she’d apologized once more, sworn her allegiance to him, vowed that they would do better in the future. It was almost a dream. It was what he’d wanted. He fears he has done something like Snoke, that he’s reached in and altered her mind. He can’t tell if he has. He doesn’t know how to tell. He feels guilt, and then more guilt for the fact that he feels relief. He feels stronger knowing Phasma stands by their side. 

It is easier to think of her than think of his grandmother. The woman vanished, right before his eyes. She’s gone. He can feel her absence. It makes his heart hurt. 

There is no more time for crying. He walks just behind Ben as the dark-haired man leads the way up the tunnel, towards the SCC. When they are close enough he will comm Phasma so she can begin her diversion. 

For a moment, just after they stepped into the tunnel, he felt terribly sick. Darkness had come in at him from all sides. He had felt as if he was suffocating, as if he was being smothered, as if all the Light inside of him was going out. He had gasped in a breath, one, two. He had felt as though he was being ripped to shreds. Just as quickly as it had arrived the feeling had passed. He assumes it was anxiety, anxiety about what they must do now. Ben had looked at him, he’d managed a smile.

Ben’s back is broad beneath the black wool of his robes. The lights on the Stormtrooper’s helmets bounce off the walls of the tunnel, dark, soaked in seawater. He can smell it here. The sea. The sea of home. Except it’s not home. All these years he thought it was home, but his mother is dead, his grandmother is dead and Arkanis is just a planet like any other. It was them, his family, that made it home. Without them he doesn’t know where home is. 

Perhaps for him home is not a place but people, certain people. Another glance at Ben, at the dark hair brushing those wide shoulders. Again his mother’s voice telling him that Ben loves him, again her voice suggesting that he loves the man in return. _Does he?_ He doesn’t know. He has never been in love, or at least known himself to be in love. He remembers being on Pyol Sem and wanting to flee, but not wanting to leave Ben. 

His father would- but it doesn’t matter. Brendol Hux is dead. Snoke is dead. It is just the two of them, him and Ben, and their forces and their war and hopefully their victory and then, even more hopefully, a time of peace. Even if it doesn’t last it has to be worth something. Except he remembers the warnings from his vision. Another war is coming. A war beyond the one they fight currently. 

Perhaps it was only a figment of his imagination. Perhaps. 

For a split second the urge to reach out, to catch Ben’s robes between his fingers and pull the man close, comes over him. He resists- but only just.

He thinks he can feel Ben, Ben’s mind, except if he thinks about it he thinks he’s been able to feel Ben’s mind for a while. It feels different now, though. Some of the Darkness, the endless, nauseating Darkness, has lifted. Ben feels more natural. Complete. More of the taint of Snoke feels like it’s been washed away.

“Ah,” Ben says, stopping suddenly. “It’s just up ahead. A break in the rock, leading out into what feels like a basement.” The man turns back to look at him, “Can you feel it?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how.” 

“Close your eyes,” Ben instructs. After a moment’s hesitation he does so. “Now, reach out, with your mind.”

He tries to do as the man asks. He’s not sure how to though. He can feel Ben, glowing, strong, standing before him. Behind him he can feel other little glowing forms. The Stormtroopers, Mitaka. He can feel the connection between the Lieutenant, FN-2188 and FN-2439. He can feel the connection between FN-2515 and FN-2316. He can feel a line of connection coming off FN-1996, heading off into the distance, offworld, probably to Edrur on Maneshfva. He can feel the grief hanging in the air around FN-1899, the loss of his comrades.

“Sense your surroundings,” Ben instructs.

Pushing his awareness away from the other people in the tunnel with him he tries to sense the space. He can feel the water, still soaked into the rock. The tiny specks of life, covering the surfaces. The life of the plants that grow here, submerged most of the year round. Crabs. He can sense tiny little crabs, each with bodies smaller than the seed of most varieties of edible seed pod. This is not what Ben wants him to sense though, Ben wants him to feel for the tunnel.

“Follow the tunnel,” Ben’s voice comes from a long way away. 

He tries harder. Focusses only on the rock. He gets a sense of it, the weight of it, the age of it, it in its infancy, laid by a massive volcanic eruption, and it in its decay, ground down into sand. No. Now. The tunnel now. He feels it. The shape of it. He follows it, up ahead. 

“Feel the place where the rock splits.”

Yes. He feels it. He feels the air coming in. He feels life. The life of the people inside the building up ahead. The lives of the animals they can’t even see dwelling with them, the little rodents in the walls, the birds in the roof. Beyond that he feels the life surrounding that life, the life in the water in the pipes, on the surfaces, in the guts and on the skin of the people, the rodents, the birds. 

He opens his eyes. “Thank you,” he says quietly.

Ben’s dark eyes are on his face. The man seems to shake himself out of a daze. “Yes,” Ben says. “I mean, no. It was nothing.”

“I’ll comm Phasma,” he says, and then to Mitaka and the Stormtroopers “Ready weapons set to stun.”

They comply, he contacts the Captain and when her modulated voice comes back with “Diversion begun Sir. They are taking the bait,” he exchanges a glance with Ben, and as one they move forward.

There is no one in the basement. There is nothing in the basement. The basement is completely empty. They cross the dark space, nothing but concrete, cobwebs and rodents that scurry away from the beam of the Stormtrooper’s helmet lights, heading towards the metal stairs up ahead. They climb the stairs, boots thumping against rusty steel, and then examine the door. It is locked, bolted. “Bricked over on the other side,” Ben says, frowning at it. He closes his eyes and tries reaching out again, with a better idea of what he is supposed to be sensing this time. He can feel them, the heavy concrete bricks concealing the door. 

“Step back,” Ben orders. They do so. The man draws his lightsabre, ignites it, and presses the blade to the door. They wait. It doesn’t take long. Once Ben has part of the door carved out the man blasts the rest out into the corridor beyond with the Force. The sound of an alarm filters through, sounding far away.

He follows the dark-haired man through, into his father’s Academy. It is like stepping into freezing water. Every hair on his body stands on end. He knows this corridor, it is not far from where he slept as a child. The walls are newly painted, pale grey, the floor is the same scuffed surface as in his vision. For a moment he has double vision, he is himself standing here as a man, as a child. Both of them want to run. Brendol Hux is coming. 

“Hux?” Ben’s voice, he blinks, looks over at the man.

“I’m ok,” he says, willing it to be true. He thinks for a moment, guessing where the heart of the SCC might be, before looking to Ben. “I’m not sure I know enough yet to sense for it, so can you reach out and try to find what we’re looking for. I suspect it will still be a module from the independent ship, probably cut free and secured in the heart of the Base. There were orders for a new facility to be constructed, but I believe they were too recent to be completed. There should be computers, lots of computers, and it should be in a well-protected position, with only one or two techs allowed inside and perhaps-” he thinks for a minute to remember who is currently in charge. Commandant D’Noeir had upset Snoke, and had been executed just before the SCC was ordered to return to Arkanis. It was Marshall Coosik. That was right, a temporary assignment. “-A woman, Marshall Limim Coosik, who has command currently.”

Ben nods, closes his eyes. He can feel what he thinks is the Force, radiating out from the man. For a moment it feels like he could reach out and touch it, but he doesn’t. Suddenly Ben moves. The man flows past him like dark water, raising his lightsaber and slicing through the blaster that pokes out around the corner. He hears a squeak. 

Raising his own blaster he moves forward, looking to find a young cadet, probably only nine or ten years old, staring at them with a helmetless face. “General Hux?” she squeaks, wide eyes getting wider. 

He exchanges a glance with Ben. “Make her sleep.” 

The man raises his hand and she sinks to the ground, cushioned by the Force. He doesn’t know what she was doing in this corridor, the barracks aren’t nearby, from what he remembers, and it’s only storage up ahead. He looks to the Stormtroopers. “Hide her,” he orders FN-2515. “Somewhere safe.”

“Yes Sir!,” the woman lifts the child and takes her back along the corridor, opening a cleaning cupboard and lying the girl carefully on the floor. 

“Did you locate what we’re looking for?” he asks Ben.

“I think so,” the man replies as FN-2515 returns. “It’s this way.” They follow Ben down corridors, seeing no one but hearing noise somewhere far up ahead. The man leads them on a twisting path, and dread begins to rise in him. He knows where they are heading, or at least what lies in the general direction. His father’s first Conditioning and Reconditioning pods. 

“Hostiles, up ahead,” Ben declares. They turn the corner, come face to face with Stormtroopers with Savim’s blue logo across their chests. The fight is quick, the enemy forces unprepared. They leave them slumped unconscious in the hallway. A moment, then a new alarm starts. Emergency lights begin to flash pale blue.

From then on more and more forces appearing as they make their way deeper into the Base. It seems a lot, but he is still aware of how many more there would be without Phasma’s diversion. Ben leads them, he follows just behind, then Mitaka. The Stormtroopers take the rear. 

At first he thinks luck must be on their side, or that maybe the Force is protecting them, because the enemy’s shots miss or misfire and theirs seem to always strike true, but it doesn’t take him long to realise that the enemy troops aren’t putting in much effort. This is crystalized when they turn into a corridor full of Stormtroopers to find them all saluting, their blasters lowered. “General Hux, Sir!” cries out from all sides. He acknowledges them. A sense of satisfaction hangs heavy in the air, he thinks he can sense their relief at his arrival. It’s strange.

They pass on, engaging in more mock battles. It doesn’t take long to feel farcical. The closest to a real battle occurs when they come across a team of maintenance techs, who panic and shriek and really try to shoot them. They leave them in a pile, unconscious. 

He has almost lost track of where they are in the building, but then they turn one final corner and he freezes without thought. “Sir?” he hears Mitaka say, from a long way away. _His father drags him down the corridor by the hair, his mother is running along behind, desperately trying to pull him out of Brendol’s grip. He is crying, he can’t seem to stop, even though he knows it’s only going to make it worse. The man drags him towards the pod, pulling the door open and throwing him inside so he bangs heavily against the wall. He doesn’t let himself collapse, he rushes towards the door, slamming into it as Brendol shuts it in his face. It’s dark. It’s all so dark. A breath. Another. He feels like he’s suffocating. The seconds tick down, he’s lost track of time, he doesn’t know when the process will-_

“Hux?” Ben’s hand on his arm pulls him out of the memory. 

He sucks in a gasp, “Sorry.” His eyes keep lingering on the dark place up ahead, the curve of the nearest pods just visible through the window in the secure door. 

Ben glances down the hall to the door and then scowls. “We’ll destroy them once we’re done here,” the man promises. 

He glances into those dark eyes. Ben is serious. “Yes,” he says, gaze flicking back to the pods. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Ben says, voice low, intimate between them. Again his mother’s words. _Could Ben actually be in love with him? How could Ben have ended up in love with him?_ “It’s the right thing to do if we want a better future.” For a moment affection swells in his chest. He didn’t like Kylo Ren but he likes Ben, the man Ben has become. 

“Which way is it from here?” he asks, the affection still very present.

It takes a moment for Ben to answer, the man’s dark eyes fixed on his face. “O-over there,” Ben mumbles, then shakes himself out of his reverie. “Follow me.”

The bypass the room with the pods and head further down the corridor. He can’t help a single glance backwards, at the door, at the room. It makes him shudder. He forces himself to turn back, to follow Ben’s broad back. 

Ben cuts through another secure door with his Lightsabre, leads them up a set of steel stairs, and then through yet another steel door, this one almost twice as thick as the previous one. There is no one around. He feels like there should be more people, yet it doesn’t feel like a trap. 

They walk across a grey concrete walkway, open on both sides, towards the heart of the SCC, cut loose and perched in the heart of his father’s old Academy, in what was once a shuttle bay. The outside of the heart still bears the scars of where it was cut away from the ship, joining walls and metal braces cut short. It’s ugly, though not as ugly as its purpose. 

There is one more secure door to manage, but as they approach the light by the lock switches from red to green. He exchanges a look with Ben, they both raise their weapons in readiness. The dark haired man goes first, pushing open the door with his lightsabre at the ready in case it’s a trap. He follows.

Inside they find Marshall Coosik, standing at attention. She salutes. “General Hux, Sir!”

“Marshall,” he acknowledges. “What is going on?”

She relaxes out of her stance, shifts, a smirk cuts across her pretty, dark skinned face. “Well Sir, it looks like you’ve taken the Base. Whoops. We did do our best to defend it, but sometimes one’s best just isn’t good enough. Nice diversion by the way, very convincing.” She gestures at the command screens behind her, row on row, the same as they looked when he ran the SCC. Nothing has been updated, as far as he can tell. “Now, I don’t quite understand how all of this works, I’ve only been here a few months after all, but from what I do understand if I just step aside and let you go over there and play with those machines you’ll be able to well and truly fuck Savim’s day up.”

“Why?” Ben asks, a suspicious scowl on his face.

A rueful smile from the woman. “Well, we fell in line because Dominion Base is pretty much breathing down our neck, and it wasn’t worth the fight at the time. We were always loyal to you, General, though to be honest no one knew for sure you’d be able to take back what you’d lost. But now you’re here, and I know enough about what this place is capable of to know she hasn’t got a chance, I’m happy to say I’ll be happy to see her gone. Not even the Finalizer went through troops at the rate she does, and she takes them young, before they’ve been fully trained.” A shrug, a serious look of longstanding dislike “She’s reckless, self-aggrandising, irresponsible and not as smart as she thinks she is; I should know, I went to school with her. All in all she’s not the sort of person I want to be following.” 

He glances at Ben. The man nods, “You’re telling the truth.”

“I’ve got no reason to lie,” she replies, simply. “Now, no disrespect Sir, but maybe you should get to it.”

Ben glares at her until she cowers a little for her presumption in talking to them, to him he suspects, in such a way, but doesn’t strike out. He nods, heads for the command screens, the screen one to the left of the one in the centre. He sits in the leather stool in front of it, inputs his codes, his geneprint. **Welcome back General Hux** scrolls across the screen, which flickers, before the list of programs hidden from everyone but his father and himself loads. 

He feels Ben come over to stand at his shoulder, to watch him as he works. He loads the list of Stormtroopers he intends to exclude from the changes he’s making, their Stormtroopers, and then after a moment, not sure why, FN-2187. Then he accesses the program to reset Stormtrooper loyalty, inputting Ben-

“And you,” the man says.

He shakes his head. “No, it’s more important that they’re loyal to you.” _He doesn’t want them forced to obey him by his father’s programming._

Ben hesitates, then a hand touches down gently on his shoulder. A small squeeze. The hand is withdrawn. “I understand. This is the only time we will have to do this.”

“I know,” he says. If it wasn’t for Savim, for what their enemies were capable of, he wouldn’t be able to bear doing this now. 

He feels a presence creeping closer, hesitation, worry. A glance over. Mitaka approaching, looking as if he wants to say something. “Yes Lieutenant?”

“Forgive me Sir, but our Stormtroopers,” a glance at the squad “will what you’re doing affect them?” That loyalty, that affection. He cannot bring himself to be annoyed with the man for his worry.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I have excluded them. They have already more than proved their loyalty.”

Relief rises in the air. “Thank you Sir,” the Lieutenant says, saluting and scurrying back to the squad.

“Not very professional,” Ben mutters. 

He shrugs, turns his attention back to the screen. Finished with that program he loads the one for his father’s version of ‘Order 66.’ The man had even labelled it thus. Uncreative. He sets the targets for Savim, Mour, and the High Council. As he’d said earlier to Ben the rest of the High Command should be given the opportunity to surrender, if they refused they could be dealt with then. 

Everything ready he prepares to execute the programs, which would send a signal from here out through the Galaxy to play a series of high pitched tones through all First Order communication lines that would relay the commands to the Stormtrooper’s programming. He hesitates. This is death he brings. This is the loss of autonomy for the Stormtroopers. _Guilt_ rises.

Ben’s hand comes down and covers his. “Let me,” the man says. “You do not have to wear the responsibility for this.” 

Instinctively he turns his hand, tangles their fingers together and gives a light squeeze. “Thank you,” he says softly, “But I must do this. This was my idea, we are only able to do this because of me. There is no point in running from the truth.”

“But-“ Ben begins. 

He smiles up at the man. A sad smile, he suspects. “Thank you for offering,” he repeats, then executes the programs. A second’s pause, then a series of high pitched beeps and whistles begins to play from the internal communication system’s speakers. He feels it. He feels the orders going out. For a moment the world disappears around him. He feels thousands of minds sit up, take notice, their thoughts reforming in their heads. It feels _wrong._ He gasps.

A large hand, a warm hand, is on his head. A blink. He focusses his eyes. His face is pressed against Ben’s broad chest. His fingers are tangled in the black wool of the man’s robes. 

The beeps and whistles play on. Eventually they stop. The orders stop. 

…

There is a pause.

…

“How do we test to see if it worked?” Ben asks after a long while. 

He raises his face from where it is resting against the man but doesn’t move the rest of himself away. The Stormtroopers here already seemed to be loyal to them, so there’s little point in checking on them. After a moment he says “We should contact Savim’s fleet. If it worked she will be dead and her ships will be seized by the Stormtroopers.”

“Ok,” Ben says. 

“Then we should contact Ascension Base,” he adds. “To see what has happened to Mour.”

“Yes,” Ben says. The man’s hand is still cupping the side of his head. He finds he doesn’t want to move further away. 

“I volunteer to contact her fleet,” a voice says from behind them. Mitaka. 

“Do so Lieutenant,” he orders, finally pulling properly away from Ben. The man’s hand drops from his head. He finds that he wants the contact back. Again he thinks of what his mother said. _Could he have fallen in love with Ben?_

They wait. There is a long time of silence, then a voice. A rasping voice. Savim’s voice. “We…” she gasps “are be… trayed…” a wheezing, desperate intake of air “Hux… both… of…us…We… are…all… kill…” another huge gasp “…ed… Mar…shall…” two desperate gasps, her voice returning fainter “…Plia… dine… and… hi…” gasp “…i…” gasp “…is… Da… Da… Da…” a huge intake of air. A cough, sounding wet. Something splattering onto the microphone. Her voice, faint. Distorted. “…ark… Je… di… ha… ave… kill… kill…” another splatter. No more words. Silence. 

He looks up at Ben, the man looks down at him. “I don’t think that was cause by the Stormtroopers,” he says after a long moment. “Try contacting another one of her ships,” he orders Mitaka.

The man, white faced, does as he asked. Nothing. No reply. “I’ll try another Sir,” Mitaka says. They wait. Mitaka contacts every ship in her fleet, one after the other. Silence. Nothing. They are dead. They are all dead. He can _feel_ it. Unnatural.

“Rhadn,” Ben breathes.

He glances at the man. Ben looks furious. “Who-?” he begins, assuming ‘Rhadn’ is a person. He has heard that name before. From Snoke. He tries to remember the context. Snoke had been very pleased about something. 

“One of my Knights,” Ben hisses out between clenched teeth. “He has betrayed me.”

A Knight of Ren. A Dark Jedi, or Sith. He’s still not entirely sure of the terminology. He remembers the vision, the Knight in white, the black blade. “You’re sure?” he asks.

A moment’s hesitation, then “Surer that it’s him than that there’s another Snoke lurking around somewhere.”

He needs a moment to think about this. “Contact Ascension Base,” he orders Mitaka. There is no way of knowing exactly what has happened to Savim’s fleet right now, so they might as well see if Order 66 worked elsewhere. 

Mitaka does so. Another pause, then laughter. Mour’s laughter. “Oh it’s baby Hux, is it?” the old man says, laughing. “I already disposed of my Stormtroopers you stupid boy! Brendol thought he was so smart, but get him drunk and the man sure couldn’t hold his-” he gestures. Mitaka cuts the connection.

So, so far something unrelated to them seems to have happened to Savim, and Mour is still alive. “Contact the High Council,” he hisses out, “Begin with Lady Alliara Mené.” _This can’t have all been for nothing._

Mitaka does so. “Lord Solo Sir!” the alert voice of a Stormtrooper answers. “This is FN-2162, her Ladyship is dead. We affirm out loyalty to you.”

Something like relief. Not quite. “Very good soldier,” he says. 

Mitaka disconnects, contacts every member of the High Council in turn. One by one Stormtroopers answer, report the death of one or more High Council members, then affirm their loyalty. At least it’s something. They may have no idea what happened to Savim, Mour might still be alive, but the Stormtroopers seem to be loyal and the High Council is dead. 

“We need to discuss this,” Ben says, voice, face, eyes intense. The man’s gaze flickers to Mitaka “You, organise the surrender of the base, and fortify it until we know more. One of you-” a gaze that flickers across the Stormtroopers “- keep contacting Savim’s fleet. Another one of you contact a random selection of other Stormtrooper units to make sure the orders have gone out. We’ll be-” the man looks at him “ _Somewhere._ ”

He looks at Marshall Coosik. “Are my father’s old quarters intact?”

The woman nods. She looks tense, worried. “Yes Sir! Unused Sir!” she replies. “I’ll help organise the surrender and fortifications.”

“Very good,” he replies, locking down the console so no one else can access the secret commands, and getting to his feet. He looks at Ben, “Follow me.”


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. With the exception of the epilogue, which I'm also going to post today, this is the last chapter of this part of the series. As I have said I do not know if I'll end up writing any more, but I hope you're all, if not happy, then not too displeased with how it ends. There's so many threads still hanging loose, I know, but they were supposed to be weaved into the next part of the series and I didn't want to artificially tie them up just because I'm not sure the next part will be written. You have all been such a wonderful, kind, supportive and understanding audience. I cannot thank you enough for reading, leaving kudos and all your lovely comments.

This does not feel like victory, absolute. This feels like victory stolen from him. He follows Hux through the base, the worries preying on his mind taking his attention from the affection he’s sure he felt coming from the redhead earlier, the willingness for physical contact Hux has displayed. Wishful thinking, he’s sure.

They pass groups of Stormtroopers who stop and salute promptly, and groups of techs and the occasional officer who salute with a touch more hesitation. He reaches out for Narem, ”Yes my Lord?”

_”Did you find the Lightsabre?_

”No my Lord,” the ex-Knight replies. ”If she ever had it it’s not still in her quarters. Saiva and I are searching the whole ship now.”

_”How is he?”_

”Saiva?” they ask. He murmurs an affirmative. “He’s calmed down a lot. I would suggest not suggesting he take his helmet off in the future. Snoke fucked with his pretty looks and he’s a bit sensitive about it.”

_”His looks?”_ Jaes had always been vain. Snoke probably saw it much the same as Luke did, as a weakness. At least his uncle would never have mutilated the man to try and rid him of it. For a moment he feels sorrow. If only Luke had never betrayed him, tried to kill him. _”Never mind,”_ he can deal with what’s happened to Saiva later. _”I think Rhadn has betrayed me. I think he has been working with a Marshall Pliadine, who I suspect is responsible for producing a drug that can block access to the Force. Do you know anything about this?”_

A pause. ”He was getting more extreme in his views,” the ex-Knight says after a while. ”Especially after what happened to Gydn. I don’t know if you remember, but they were dating in secret back at the temple.” He has a vague memory of then sneaking around together, him finding it amusing. Thinking they were unsuited. Kaepala Lethris had not been strong in the Force, or strong in her personality, and Cmryt Zhva’adtm had been so arrogant, so convinced of his own righteousness and strength, convinced he could _make_ himself stronger than the rest of them.  ”After Snoke conducted that final ritual on her, the one that made her like she is now, Zhva’adtm seemed to retreat into the Dark. We haven’t really talked much since.”

_”While he was unconscious Hux saw a vision of a Knight dressed white, holding my uncle’s lightsabre, with a black blade in place of the green. I think it could be Rhadn.”_

Another pause, then ”You’re probably right. Are you sure this ‘White Knight’ is an enemy?”

_”Yes,”_ he replies. _”Hux’s vision identified him as one, and even if he hadn’t- Something seems to have gotten to Savim’s fleet first. We’re not sure what. We managed to speak to her for a moment, before she died. She said she, _we,_ had been betrayed by Marshall Pliadine and his ‘Dark Jedi.’”_

”Ah,” Narem sighs. ”I see. If I may ask, are we otherwise victorious?”

_”Mour is still alive,”_ he replies. _”Apparently he knew about the possibility of our plan and disposed of his Stormtroopers already. The High Council is dead though, and from what we can tell the Stormtroopers are now loyal to me. Keep looking for the lightsabre, contact me if you find it or anything else that might be relevant.”_

”Will do,” Narem says. He breaks the connection, reaches for Xatjt and Jrii. 

Jrii doesn’t reply, Xatjt does. ”Yes my Lord?”

He relays everything he told Narem, asks her about Rhadn. She doesn’t have anything more to add, other than that she’d never actually liked the man that much. He then tells her about Gydn attacking Hux, about Saiva, about Neiro becoming Narem once more. _”You can make the same choice, if you wish. You don’t even have to stay with me if you don’t want to.”_

She thinks for a long moment. He feels worried, but it’s the right thing to do. Or at least he hopes it’s the right thing to do. He does not want to be Snoke, he does not want to rule solely by coercion. ”I think I’ll stay, if that’s ok my Lord,” she says after a while. ”I don’t know what I’d do if I left, or retired. I suspect I’d get bored. Though, if it’s all the same to you, I might take my helmet off like Narem has, and if you don’t mind I’d rather go by ‘Xatjt’ without the Ren.”

_”You don’t want to return to your birth name?”_ he finds himself asking.

”In private,” she says, and he remembers what she said about the Public and Private Heads of the families on Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei. Perhaps Private and Public life have cultural significance for the people from her planet. ”I have become used to being Xatjt in public. I find myself somewhat attached to the name.”

He has no problem with her choice. He asks her to keep vigilant for any information on Rhadn and any other Dark Side users and is about to break the connection when she speaks again. ”My Lord-” she sounds hesitant.

_”Yes?”_ he asks.

”My Lord, we, myself and Tsi’Jxe, are at Tatooine. I believe we have discovered the shuttle, still floating derelict, but Jrii is not here and I have not been able to contact her.”

The words shiver through him. He reaches out, instinctively, for his other Knight. Nothing. He can feel her lifeforce, but she does not acknowledge him and no matter how hard he tries she is too far away and their connection too weak for him to force the issue. _”Thank you for bringing this to my attention,”_ he says. _”Keep trying, tell me if anything changes. Have you discovered anything from the shuttle?”_

”Not yet my Lord,” she answers. ”We have only just located it. I hope to be able to tell you more later.”

He thanks her and breaks the connection. They are walking along an empty corridor, the walls turning a more pleasant shade of grey, the flooring better quality. A glance at Hux. The man seems tense, getting tenser by the moment. He hears Hux’s comm chime. The man answers it “Yes?”

“General Hux, Sir!” comes Phasma’s modulated voice. “The Base has surrendered, I am working with Lieutenant Mitaka and Marshall Coosik to fortify it. I have been told to report that so far there has been no response from Savim’s fleet, and all Stormtroopers contacted have affirmed their loyalty to Supreme Leader Solo.”

“Thank you Captain,” Hux says, ending the comm. 

A pause, then the redhead speaks. “I suppose this is victory.” 

“Mour is still out there,” he reminds him. “We do not know what has happened to Savim’s fleet.”

“They’re dead,” the redhead says, simply. “Can’t you feel it?” He can. He knows it’s true. He just doesn’t know what happened. “Anyway, Mour is only one man, and if he’s disposed of his Stormtroopers he’s one man with very little back-up, we can starve him out. _Disposed of,_ I suppose he killed them. A waste.” Hux stops walking, runs a hand over his face. “We won. This is what victory feels like.”

“Yes. It just doesn’t feel much like winning,” he says. A thought strikes him “Marshall Pliadine and Rhadn may challenge us.”

Hux nods, glances at him with those pale eyes. “You’re right, but right now we’re in the best position. We have the loyalty of all the surviving Stormtroopers.” Hux sucks in a deep breath, “Come on, it’s just up ahead.”

He follows the man to a plain door. Hux hesitates, grimaces, but inputs his codes and opens it. They walk inside, stepping into living quarters all done up in shades of pale cream and sage green. “Martelle decorated,” Hux says, looking around. “My father’s wife.”

The place is pleasant enough, old fashioned now, and very conventionally boring back in the day. There is a lot of furniture, all equally pale, all equally charmless. Pretty little statuettes and sculptures, vases long since empty of flowers, sit on almost every surface. On the walls there are landscapes and still-life paintings, none of them very good. Martelle was not an adventurous interior designer. Hux walks over to an overgrown plant in a porcelain pot on a sideboard. He touches one of the fat, richly green leaves. “They’ve had droids in here, tending things,” the man says, more to himself than anything else. “You need to release a statement,” the redhead says, turning to look at him. “the Galaxy needs to know we’re victorious, that _you_ are victorious. We should also contact the remaining members of the High Command and offer them amnesty if they fall in line.”

“I,” he says, voice soft. “I don’t think I know what to do. I had hoped for this, but now it’s here it all feels so strange.”

A pause, Hux looking at him with those beautiful eyes, those pretty freckles shining under the artificial lighting. “I saw things,” the man says after a moment. “In my vision, I saw things, was told things. Ben-” Hux steps towards him “-I think something terrible is coming. My grandmother, when I saw her in my vision, she said the _real_ war is coming, and your uncle, he showed me all life in the galaxy being extinguished.” He believes Hux, automatically. He can feel the man is telling the truth, or at least telling him what Hux believes is the truth, and the Force itself seems to be confirming the truth of that belief.

“By Rhadn?” he asks. Dread is starting to fill him. 

Hux nods. “If you’re right about who the Knight in white is, then yes.”

_If Hux is right this is Snoke’s fault._ “What should we do?” he asks. There’s no one else. It will have to be them. They will have to stop Rhadn, stop Snoke’s abomination. 

“Consolidate our power; prepare our forces; release a statement as I said, so the Galaxy knows who we are and what we stand for; send an expedition to find out what happened to Savim’s fleet; dismantle the Conditioning and Reconditioning programs; gather intelligence on Rhadn, Marshall Pliadine, Mour and any other enemies we have-” Hux sighs. “In other words we have just as much to do now as we did before we ‘won’.”

“There’s something else,” he says, remembering the conversation with Xatjt. “Jrii has either gone missing or has stopped communicating with Xatjt and myself.”

“Jrii?” Hux frowns, “Isn’t she one of the two you sent to look for your child?”

“Yes.” More dread. He hopes she either gets in touch soon or that Xatjt discovers something to reassure him that Jrii hasn’t betrayed him as well. 

Gydn is unconscious, Rhadn is plotting against him, Jrii is missing. That’s half of his Knights. Half of his friends. All because he led them to Snoke. 

“Fuck,” Hux hisses out. “You don’t know if she discovered where your daughter is?”

“Daughter?”

The redhead blinks. Frowns. “Yes, daughter. In my vision my grandmother referred to you and your girl. I didn’t even realise it until now.”

_Daughter. He has a daughter?_ The thought feels right. “Oh fuck I don’t know,” he says. He needs to sit down. It’s suspicious that Jrii should stop communicating just after finding the shuttle.

Suddenly Hux is there, right in front of him, those long pale hands cupping the sides of his face. “You and me,” the man says, “we’ll work it out. If anyone can deal with this situation it is us. Look what we’ve survived. I don’t want-” Hux takes a deep breath. “What I saw in my vision frightened me, _horrified_ me.” Those pale hands drop from either side of his face, he reaches out, catches the right one, twines their fingers even before he realises he’s moving. “I was thinking of running away,” Hux says after a moment, quietly. “I admit it, running away from this war, from all the death, but when I saw what I saw- I can’t. You can’t. _We_ can’t. It’s already coming, and we are the only ones with a hope of stopping it.”

_Hux had been thinking of leaving him?_ Fuck. Fuck, he’s so glad the man has decided to stay. “You’re right,” he says after a long moment. “Oh fuck, Hux. You’re right.”

“ _Armitage,_ ” the man says, his free hand gesturing to the room they’re in. “This place is Hux. My father is Hux. If you are Ben, then I am Armitage.”

“Armitage,” he breathes out. It feels intimate. It feels good to say the man’s first name. 

Suddenly the man leans in, places the softest of kisses on his lips. He freezes. Hux pulls back, jerks back really. “I’m sorry,” the man rushes to say, stepping backwards quickly and averting his eyes. “I misunderstood. I’m sorry.”

He lurches forward, catches the man’s wrist and gently tugs him back close. “No. No, you didn’t. I just, I didn’t think you would want this-” one of his own hands reaches up and cups the side of Hux’s jaw.

Those pale eyes move slowly to meet his. “I’m not sure what I want,” the redhead says, “but I like you. I really do like you.”

He leans in, pressing his own lips to the redhead’s. Hux- no, _Armitage’s_ lips are soft, giving beneath his own. The kiss starts slowly, just the press of lips, but soon he finds himself carried away. His arms come up, wrap around Armitage’s waist, pull the man in close. His lips part, his tongue flicking out to lap at the seam of the other man’s mouth. He starts getting hard. One hand moves downwards, feeling across the thick greatcoat for the man’s ass. 

A sense of _**cold.**_ Fear. A memory. The feel of Snoke pressing close to him. He releases Hux, steps back. “I’m sorry,” it’s his turn to apologize. “I’m so, I didn’t mean to-”

Hux sucks in a deep breath. “It’s ok,” the redhead says. “I just, I don’t think I’m- I’m not ready. For that. I still want-” a small, slightly helpless movement of the man’s hands, his head. “I liked our first kiss. I like _you._ ”

“We can take things slowly,” he suggests after a moment, barely daring to hope. 

“Are you sure?” Armitage asks, voice small, ashamed. “I might never be ready for more.”

“Yes!” he declares, reaching out and very carefully taking the man’s hand once more. “Oh Force, yes. If you’re willing to give me a chance I will wait until every sun in the galaxy dies a natural death. I will wait longer. I would wait an eternity for you.”

A soft laugh, fond, affectionate. “I hope you don’t have to wait that long,” the redhead says, leaning in and pressing a soft, brief, kiss to his lips. When Armitage pulls away he leans in himself, risking another soft, brief kiss. It earns him a smile. 

_This is what victory feels like._

“Come on,” Armitage says after a long moment. “We have a statement to prepare.”

He laughs, feeling giddy. “Yes. Let’s show this Galaxy who’s boss.”


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the epilogue, I have also posted the chapter before this today, in case you didn't see it.

A woman who has outlived her husband, outlived her brother, outlived most of the people she has known in this life sits listening to her son’s voice as he declares himself everything she has lived her life fighting against. 

She listens as he denounces Snoke, condemns the man’s actions and calls him a cancer at the heart of the First Order, a monster, a man who used physical and Force based coercion to enforce his unjustifiable rule. She listens as he condemns the First Order, the destruction of the Hosnian System, the bombardment of Lai Jtsi Dtem Dei, the bombing of civilian populations, the death and enslavement of so many. In the same breath he denounces the corruption of the New Republic, the way it was used as a tool for individuals to acquire wealth at the expense of the multitudes, its own refusal to see the rise of Snoke, of the First Order, and the deaths that can be laid at its doorstep because of that.

He calls himself Liberator, promises a better future for the Galaxy, a future that will only be seen as long as he rules. There will be no more fear, no more oppression, no more corruption. Emperor. That is what he is making himself. The Emperor of a new Empire. 

Her son’s voice sounds strong. He sounds like a man fully grown, no longer a boy. He was always unsure of himself. Never confident. She did not think she would ever hear him sound like this, even if he had not betrayed everything she stood for, even if he had never left her side. She thinks of what Poe, Finn, Rose and Rey told her. Of his closeness to General Hux. She wonders what role the redhead has played in her son’s new certainty. 

She listens, and she despairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read the note at the beginning of the previous chapter. This series is now officially on hiatus. I will just sneak in a chance to thank you all one last time for how wonderful you've been. If it wasn't for your kudos and comments this fic wouldn't have made it this far.


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